Keynote Speakers

Leroy Gardner is Professor of Structural Engineering at Imperial College London and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Prof. Gardner is engaged in teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, industry training, specialist advisory work and leading an active research group in structural engineering.

Prof. Gardner's principal research interests, in respect of which he has co-authored 4 textbooks, 7 book chapters and over 400 technical papers, lie in the areas of structural testing, numerical modelling and the development of design methods for steel structures. He is Editor-in-Chief of two international journals and serves on the Editorial boards of five others. He chairs a number of IStructE and BSI committees, is the UK National Representative on the European Working Group for the structural steel design standard EN 1993-1-1, and is a Fellow of both the Institutions of Civil (FICE) and Structural Engineers (FIStructE). Prof. Gardner was awarded the IABSE prize in 2017 and the ASCE Shortridge Hardesty prize in 2021.

Jat-Yuen Richard Liew, PhD, PEng, is Professor and Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore. He received his BEng (First Class) and MEng from NUS and his PhD from Purdue University, where his work on advanced frame analysis contributed to Eurocodes and AISC design specifications. His research focuses on steel and steel–concrete composite structures for high-rise and large-span applications in the building, offshore, and defence sectors.

Professor Liew is a Fellow of the Singapore Academy of Engineering and holds professional and chartered engineer registrations in Singapore, the UK, and ASEAN. He is a past President of the Singapore Structural Steel Society and an elected member of the Singapore Professional Engineers Board (2021–2026). He has authored over 400 publications, including books and book chapters, delivered more than 100 keynote and invited lectures, and serves on the editorial boards of seven international journals. His work has received over 14,500 citations (h-index 70), along with numerous research and teaching awards.

Professor Ben Young is Vice President (Student and Global Affairs) and Chair Professor of Steel Structures at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He develops strategies for student development, global engagement, and international partnerships. Previously, he served as Professor of Structural Engineering at The University of Hong Kong and held senior residential leadership roles. Prior to Hong Kong, Ben worked at the University of Waterloo in Canada and the University of Science and Technology. He obtained his BSc, BEng, and PhD from the University of Sydney.

Professor Young's research interests include cold-formed steel, high-strength and stainless steel structures, aluminium structures, structural stability, and the resilience of metal structures. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Constructional Steel Research published by Elsevier with a citation impact factor of 4.347 and h-index of 92. He has supervised over 60 PhD students (including more than 40 ICS-indexed journal articles, with an h-index of 80 (Scopus). He is a Member of the European Academy of Science and Arts and has been listed among the Top 1% of most-cited researchers worldwide by Clarivate Analytics.

Ron Ziemian is a structural engineer and Professor of Civil Engineering at Bucknell University. He has authored over 100 publications on the analysis and design of steel and aluminium structures, co-authored the textbook Matrix Structural Analysis (Wiley), authored the monograph Advanced Methods of Inelastic Analysis of Steel Frames (ASCE/SEI), and edited the 8th edition of the Guide to Stability Design Criteria for Metal Structures (Wiley).

Prof. Ziemian is an Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier's Journal of Constructional Steel Research and a registered Professional Engineer who serves as a technical consultant to the Aluminum Association. He has played a significant role in the development of U.S. building codes, most notably the ASCE 7 Load Specifications, ACI 318 and AIS committees, including Chair of AISC TC3 (Load, Fatigue, Analysis, Frame Stability, and Connection Subcommittees).

A frequent keynote speaker at international conferences, Professor Ziemian has received numerous prestigious awards, including the (ASCE) Raymond Reese Young Member Award, ASCE Shortridge Hardesty Award, AISC T.R. Higgins Award, and the Presidential Research Award. He is also a recipient of Bucknell University's Presidential Award for Teaching Excellence and a Presidential Professorship. He earned his BSCE, MS Eng, and PhD from Cornell University.

Professor Brian Uy is a Scientia Professor of Structural Engineering (appointed 2023) and a globally recognised leader in steel and composite structures research with over 30 years of experience. He previously served as Professor of Structural Engineering and Dean of Engineering at Western Sydney University.

Professor Uy is Vice-President (Australasia and South East Asia) and President-Elect (2025) of Institution of Structural Engineers. He is currently President of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering. His honours include the Sir John Holland Civil Engineer of the Year Award (2018), the John Connell Gold Medal – Structural Engineer of the Year Award (2021), and was elected a Fellow of ATSE and the Royal Society of New South Wales.

He has been a Professor of Civil Engineering since 2005, with previous permanent positions at University of Wollongong, NSW Journal articles in prestigious Civil and has delivered over 100 plenary, keynote, and invited lectures worldwide. His research covers the seismic performance and their application to complex infrastructure systems.

Kim Rasmussen is Challis Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney. He obtained his MSc in Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark, and his PhD and higher doctorate (DSc) from the University of Sydney. He has served the University of Sydney from 1990 to the present. His main research fields are the areas of structural mechanics, cold-formed steel, research, and climate data.

Professor Rasmussen is a past Chief of the Centre for Advanced Structural Engineering, and has been actively involved in research on cold-formed steel structures. He serves on the editorial boards of leading international journals and has been a member of the Australian Research Council's Engineering, Information and Computing Sciences Panel. He also continues to work as an active national and international consultant to industry.

His research focuses on structural mechanics and stability of steel structures, including cold-formed steel, stainless steel, aluminium structures, and advanced structural analysis. He has received continuous Australian Research Council funding for new research in the above-mentioned areas. His structural analysis research focus is on inelastic second-order analysis, plasticity and limit state analysis of steel frameworks.

Tan Kang Hai is Director of the Protective Technology Research Centre (PTRC) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore. His research has directly informed national fire safety guidelines issued by the Singapore Civil Defence Force for multi-storey steel-framed buildings with composite slabs. He has also led major government-funded projects on underground cavern safety, fire protection materials, and progressive collapse mitigation, contributing to Singapore design guides and standards.

Professor Tan has authored nearly 230 SCI-indexed journal papers, with over 7,200 citations (h-index 47), and has delivered more than 60 keynote and invited lectures worldwide, along with extensive professional training courses. A registered Professional Engineer in Singapore and a Specialist PE in Protective Security, he serves on multiple national advisory, standards, and review panels related to structural safety and infrastructure protection.

Amit H. Varma is the Karl H. Kettelhut Professor of Civil Engineering at Purdue University and Director of the Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research. He received his BTech in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and his MS and PhD in structural engineering from the University of Oklahoma and Lehigh University, respectively.

Professor Varma's research focuses on the development and large-scale testing of innovative steel–concrete composite structures for buildings, bridges, and safety-related nuclear facilities. His work addresses structural performance under extreme loading conditions, including seismic, fire, blast, impact, and fatigue. The outcomes of his research form the technical basis of several AISC design codes and specifications used in the United States and internationally.

He has conducted extensive experimental and numerical investigations on composite members, connections, and systems, and is widely recognised for his contributions to resilient and safety-critical infrastructure design.

Dipti Ranjan Sahoo is Dean (Infrastructure) and Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India. He was a Faculty of National Institute of Technology Kanpur and has also served as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Professor Sahoo's research focuses on performance-based earthquake engineering, hybrid simulation and testing, seismic strengthening and structure fire engineering in addition to steel and composite structures. He focuses on connection strengthening, and structure fire engineering. He has published over 280 research articles, holds seven patents on earthquake vibration control devices, and is the author of the textbook Fundamental Structural Analysis (PHI, India). He has supervised more than 40 Ph.D. students.

He is the recipient of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (2022) in Engineering Sciences and is an elected Fellow of INAE, ICE (UK), IEI, and SEFI. His other honours include the INAE Young Engineer Award, SERB Young Scientist Award and international fellowships.

Tak-Ming Chan is Professor of Structural Engineering at The University of Hong Kong and a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers. He serves as Editor of Thin-Walled Structures and currently leads a major Research Impact Fund project supported by the Research Grants Council on circular-economy approaches for steel and composite structures through deconstruction and reuse.

Professor Chan is the 2022 recipient of the Nishino Prize (EASEC) and has received multiple research, teaching, and knowledge-transfer awards, including a Gold Medal at the 49th International Exhibition of Inventions Geneva (2024). He was also listed in Stanford University's Top 2% Scientists worldwide (Career), 2024.

He holds a first-class honours degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Hong Kong, an MSc in Structural Steel Design and a PhD in Tubular Structures from Imperial College London, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic and Professional Practice from the University of Warwick. He began his professional career at Arup.

Associate Professor Cao Hung Pham is a Senior Lecturer in Structural Engineering at School of Civil Engineering, the University of Sydney. From 2011 to 2015, he was awarded the prestigious ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship on the development of newly developed Direct Strength Method for Cold-Formed Steel Structures under combined actions. He was appointed to a continuing academic position as Lecturer in School of Civil Engineering, the University of Sydney since 2013 and Senior Lecturer in 2018.

Associate Professor Pham's main research areas are theoretical and experimental structural behaviours and designs with particular interest in steel structural members and systems, cold-formed steel structures, aluminium structures and structural stability and analysis. He teaches advanced steel structures and was successful in three ARC Discovery Projects, one ARC Linkage Project with BlueScope Steel, one ARC Research Hub for Australian Steel Innovation, and one Innovation Connections Grant. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Thin-Walled Structures Journal and Journal of Science and Technology in Civil Engineering.