Born March 1938, Prof. Prem Krishna obtained his early degrees from the University of Roorkee - BE(Civil) in 1959, ME(Structures) in 1961. He obtained his Doctorate from Imperial College, London in 1964, and joined the faculty of Civil Engineering at the University of Roorkee in 1965 and retired there in 1998. He however maintained contact with the institution in adjunct positions till 2007. Dr. Prem Krishna also had teaching assignments at the University of Illinois, Urbana, USA (1968-69), and the Imperial College of London, UK (1969-70). In addition to being a committed teacher, he has been keenly active in R&D and maintained close interaction with industry in the areas of Steel structures, Long span structures & wind engineering.
He was elected President of the International Association of Wind Engineering for a four-year term in 1991 and was the Founder-President of the Indian Society of Wind Engineering (1993-2000). He is the Chairman of the Research Council of the Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, since April 2010, and is Vice President of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, since January 2008. He is also associated with a number of path breaking and challenging industrial projects in the area of wind and structural engineering. Dr.Prem Krishna took the initiative to organize the first Asia-Pacific Symposium on Wind Engineering at the University of Roorkee in 1985 – this has since become a four-yearly conference, revolving amongst the AP economies. He along with a few other colleagues set up the Indian Society of Wind Engineering in 1993.
Prem Krishna has made significant contributions towards wind disaster mitigation efforts of the country. He has been a member of the expert group which produced the Vulnerability Atlas of India, published in 1997 and revised in 2007. This is a single most useful document to provide the basic data for planning the natural disaster mitigation programme of the country. As Chairman of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) Sectional Committee on Cyclone Resistant Structures, he has helped develop relevant standards. He has also been actively involved in the development of other wind - related design codes. Amongst his awards and honors, are, the Life-time achievement award 2013, by the Indian Society of Wind engineering, celebrating its 20 years of establishment, Distinguished Alumnus Award, 2012, IIT Roorkee and a Commemorative Volume released in his honor, at the National Conference on Wind Engineering, Nagpur, February 2004.
Prof. Prem Krishna will be delivering a talk on "Structural Engineering - A Historical View & Challenges Ahead" Click here to access the paper.
Dr. Shukla is the Simon Ostrach Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island (URI). He also serves as the Director of the National Institute for Undersea Vehicle Technology at URI. Dr. Shukla was elected to the Russian Academy of Engineering in 2015 and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2011. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics, Fellow Shock Wave Society (India) and Fellow of the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM). He received the M.M. Frocht Award from SEM for “outstanding achievements as an educator in the field of experimental mechanics” and the B.J. Lazan Award from SEM for “outstanding technical contributions.” In 2003 he served as the President of SEM and in 2011 delivered the prestigious Murray Lecture at SEM. He has served as the Technical Editor of Experimental Mechanics and currently serves on the Editorial Boards of key engineering journals. Dr. Shukla has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater, IIT Kanpur. In 2023 he received the prestigious Drucker Medal from the American Society for Mechanical Engineers and the Theocaris Award from the SEM. He has served as the Clark B. Millkan Visiting Professor of Aerospace at the California Institute of Technology, USA and as the Satish Dhawan Visiting Chair at the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore India.
Along with his many Ph.D. and M.S. students, he has published more than 450 papers in refereed journals and proceedings. Dr. Shukla has also authored and edited 10 books.
Professor Gupta is an elected Fellow of ASM International and American Society for Composites and a Senior Member of IEEE. His other awards include the 2020 Brimacombe Medalist Award from TMS; 2013-ASM-International Silver Medal, 2013-TMS Young Leader Professional Development Award, 2007 and 2009 Visiting Lectureship Award from the American Society for Metals-Indian Institute of Metals, the Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship administered by the American Society of Engineering Education, and the Junior Faculty Fellow, Othmer Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, NYU-Tandon School of Engineering.
He served as the Chair of the Composites Materials Committee of TMS (2016-2018) and Membership Secretary of American Society for Composites. He is serving on the editorial board of Materials Science and Engineering A, Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials and ASTM journal Materials Processing and Characterization and previously served on the editorial board of Composites Part B.
Prof. Gupta will be delivering a lecture on Challenges in materials characterization posed by novel materials and manufacturing methods.
Professor Abhijit Mukherjee is a Civil Engineer, researcher and educator. He has taught structural mechanics, structural design, structural stability and finite element analysis courses. His industrial consultations are on structural assessment, structural rehabilitation and new structural materials. He loves to work on rehabilitation of heritage structures.
His research is on sustainable engineering practices. He approaches sustainable practices from three directions- development of new sustainable materials, monitoring the health of existing infrastructure and extending life of infrastructure through rehabilitation and retrofitting.
Professor Mukherjee has received the ASCE outstanding research award. As recognition of his achievements in the field of Engineering, Indian National Academy of Engineering has conferred on Professor Mukherjee their Fellowship. He is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in India and Punjab Academy of Sciences for his contributions in Engineering Sciences.
Prof Abhijeet Mukherjee will be delivering a lecture on "A Short History of Concrete: 3000BCE to 2050CE."
He has published over 450 peer-reviewed papers in journals and conferences, and has given numerous invited key-note presentations. He is one of the top cited authors in Civil Engineering and as per Google Scholar, he has more than 17,000 citations with an "h” index of 72.
Prof. Kodur is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Foreign Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering. He is a professional engineer, Fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers, Fellow of Structural Engineering Institute, Fellow of American Concrete Institute, Associate Editor of Journal of Structural Engineering, Chairman of ACI Fire Protection Committee, Chairman of ASCE-29 (Fire) Standards Committee and a member of UK-EPSRC College of Reviewers. He has won many high profile-awards and most notably he was part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and American Society of Civil Engineers high profile "Experts Team" that investigated the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings as a result of September 11 (2001) attacks.
Prof. Venkatesh Kodur will be delivering a lecture on "Advanced Analysis for Enhancing Fire Resistance of Steel Structures through Composite Construction"
Prof. Nemkumar (Nemy) Banthia is a University Killam Professor, Distinguished University Scholar and Canada Research Chair at The University of British Columbia. His primary area of research is in Sustainable Concrete Infrastructure with emphasis on nano-modified fiber reinforced composites, 3D printing, ultra-high performance concrete materials, waste recycling, fracture analysis, earthquake strengthening and sensor based structural health monitoring. He also serves as the Founding CEO and Scientific Director of India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability (IC-IMPACTS)—a Research Centre of Excellence with over 50 participating universities, 100 collaborating companies and 260 faculty members receiving research support.
A mentor to many, Dr. Banthia has graduated over 75 doctoral and post-doctoral students. He holds 9 patents, has published over 475 refereed papers, and has edited 20 volumes. He serves on the Editorial Boards of nine international journals and is the Editor-in-Chief of the J. of Cement and Concrete Composites— a journal with a 2022 Impact Factor of 10.5. This is currently the Journal with the second highest Impact Factor in the field.
His awards include the Wason Medal of American Concrete Institute, Solutions Through Research Award of the BC Innovation Council, Wolfson Merit Award of the Royal Society of the UK, Killam Research Prize from the Killam Foundation, Horst Leipholz Medal of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, Mufti Medal of Excellence of the International Society for Health Monitoring of Infrastructure, Leadership in Science and Technology Award of the Drishti Foundation, Industry Marvel Award of the Darpan Society and Global Citizenship Award of alumni-UBC. In 2018, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology recognized him with Excellence in Technology and Innovation Award. In 2020, IIT-Delhi recognized him with a Distinguished Alumni Award for Contributions to Teaching and Research. More recently, in March 2022, Dr. Banthia received the Jacob Biely Faculty Research Prize which is regarded as UBC’s premier award for research across all disciplines. More recently, Dr. Banthia received the Dean’s Medal of Distinction from the Faculty of Applied Science, UBC. In January 2023, UBC appointed Dr. Banthia as the University Killam Professor, which is the highest honor UBC can confer on a member of its faculty. In its 110-year history, UBC has appointed only 23 University Killam Professors.
Dr. Banthia is a fellow of the American Concrete Institute, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, Indian Concrete Institute, Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE), and the Royal Society of Canada. He is one of Top 25 ‘Most Cited in the field of Construction & Building Materials’ as per Platinum h-index. His Google Scholar Citations exceed 21,000 with an h-index of 79.
Prof. Nemkumar (Nemy) Banthia will be delivering a lecture on "Adaptive, Functional and Bio-Mimicked Ultra-High Performance Concrete for Smart and Self-Healing Structures".