Conference SPEAKERS

Conference Speakers

Plenary speakers

Four plenary lectures from leaders in protective structures

Professor
Hong HAO

Guangzhou University, China /
Curtin University, Australia

Biography: Hong Hao is a Professor at Guangzhou University, China and a John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University, Australia. His research interests include structural protection against extreme dynamic loads (earthquake, blast, and impact), and structural condition monitoring. He has published extensively in these fields, with over 50 highly cited papers, more than 61,000 citations, and an h-index of 128 on Google Scholar. His research outcomes have been incorporated into textbooks, design codes, and applied to construction projects worldwide. Repeatedly named as the Australia’s research field leader in Civil and Structural Engineering, he ranks among the world’s top researchers in his field.

Prof. Hao has served as President of the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society (2010–2013) and the International Association of Protective Structures (2018–2023). He is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering, a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of Engineers Australia, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the International Association of Engineering Asset Management, and a Distinguished Fellow of the International Association of Protective Structures. He has won over 60 awards, including the Nishino Medal in 2022 and the Charles Bubb Medal in 2019.

Professor
Jie YANG

RMIT University, Australia

Biography: Dr. Jie Yang is the Distinguished Professor in the School of Engineering, RMIT University, Australia. His main research interests include advanced composite structures, mechanical metamaterials, structural stability and dynamics, CNT/graphene reinforced nanocomposites, smart structures and control. He has authored 3 books and over 500 publications including 420 journal papers which have so far attracted over 34100 Google Scholar citations with h-index 99. He is the Highly Cited Researcher (Cross Field) in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025 by Clarivate Analytics and is named by Australian Research Magazine as the Global Field Leader in Mechanical Engineering in 2020, Australia’s Research Field Leader in Mechanical Engineering in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, in Structural Engineering in 2021 as well as in Acoustics and Sound in 2023.

Prof Yang is the recipient of Nishino Medal in 2026 and currently the Lead Editor-in-Chief of Engineering Structures and serves the editorial boards of many other international journals.

Professor
Nemkumar BANTHIA

The University of British Columbia, Canada

Biography: Nemkumar (Nemy) Banthia is a University Killam Professor and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. His primary research focuses on carbon-neutral concrete infrastructure and the use of sensors for infrastructure management.
As a dedicated mentor, Dr. Banthia has supervised and graduated more than 75 doctoral and post-doctoral students. He holds nine patents, has published over 500 refereed papers, and has edited 30 volumes. He currently serves on the editorial boards of nine international journals and is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Cement and Concrete Composites, which has a 2025 Impact Factor of 14.4—the highest in the field.

Dr. Banthia’s awards include the Wason Medal (American Concrete Institute), the Solutions Through Research Award (BC Innovation Council), the Wolfson Merit Award (Royal Society of the UK), the Killam Research Prize (Killam Foundation), the Horst Leipholz Medal (Canadian Society for Civil Engineering), the Mufti Medal of Excellence (International Society for Health Monitoring of Infrastructure), and the Global Citizenship Award (Alumni–UBC). In 2020, IIT Delhi recognized him with a Distinguished Alumni Award. In March 2022, Dr. Banthia received the Jacob Biely Faculty Research Prize, widely regarded as UBC’s premier research award across all disciplines. Following receipt of UBC’s Dean’s Medal of Distinction (Faculty of Applied Science) in January 2023, UBC appointed Dr. Banthia as a University Killam Professor—the highest honor the university can confer on a member of its faculty.
Dr. Banthia also holds Distinguished Visiting Professor appointments at Princeton University (USA), IIT Hyderabad (India), and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Hong Kong). He 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.

Professor
Guoxing LU

Zhejiang University, China

Biography: Guoxing Lu is currently a Qiushi Chair Professor at Zhejiang University and the President of the International Society for Impact Engineering. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and has served as Distinguished Professor of Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, Founding Director of the Impact Engineering Laboratory, Associate Dean of the School of Engineering, Head of the Department of Mechanical and Product Design Engineering. He was the President of the Australian Chapter of the International Society for Protective Structures. He has also served as a tenured faculty member at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

His research interests include energy absorption of structures and materials, mechanical properties of materials at high strain rates, impact dynamics, and origami structures and metamaterials. He has published more than 340 international journal papers, an English monograph on energy absorption of structures and materials (Guoxing Lu and Tongxi Yu, Energy Absorption of Materials and Structures, Elsevier, 2003), and another Chinese monograph (Energy Absorption—Mechanical Behavior and Plastic Analysis of Structures and Materials, Tongxi Yu, Guoxing Lu, Xiong Zhang, Science Press, 2019). His papers have been cited more than 25,000 times and have an H-index of 83. He is the associate editor of the International Journal of Impact Engineering and a member of the advisory/editorial board of International Journal of Mechanical Science, Thin-Walled Structures, and Composites Part B etc.

Keynote speakers

Six keynote speakers for 6 thematic areas

Professor Bo YANG Chongqing University, China

Dr. YANG Bo is a professor of structural engineering in the School of Civil Engineering at Chongqing University. Dr. YANG works mainly on the progressive collapse of steel and composite structures and mechanical properties of high strength steels and high performance of concrete structures. He has authored/co-authored about 150 SCI international journal publications. He has been selected as an Elsevier Highly Cited Chinese Researcher. His honours cover the Second Prize for Natural Science of the Ministry of Education of China and the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award of China.

Professor Masuhiro BEPPU National Defense Academy of Japan, Japan

Prof. Masuhiro Beppu received BEng and Master degree from National Defense Academy of Japan, and PhD from Yamaguchi University, Japan. Prof. Beppu is currently working at Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the National Defense Academy of Japan His research interests are Protection of Structures against Natural and Manmade Dynamic Loads.
Prof. Beppu has been working in the area of Blast and Impact Engineering. He has more than 250 technical publications including over 180 journal papers, 9 edited books, and 80 conference papers.
Prof. Beppu was the chairperson of the impact committee in the Japan Society of Civil Engineers. He is the board member of International Association of Protective Structures, associate editor of International Journal of Protective Structures, and serves in the editorial board of many journals.

Dr Kok Wei KANG Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), Singapore

Kok Wei holds the title of a senior principal engineer at the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA). He currently leads in the research and technology development projects to meet the unique protective infrastructure requirements of the Ministry of Defence and Singapore Armed Forces in Singapore. Some of his achievements include the works to increase the explosive storage of operational facilities and to enhance the resilience of various protective buildings and infrastructure. He was also one of the key contributors in capability build-up in in the building and infrastructure programme centre at DSTA and has streamlined and modernised the design processes. Kok Wei holds a PhD in civil engineering from the National University of Singapore.

Professor Jun YU Southeast University, China

Yu Jun is currently working as a professor in School of Civil Engineering, Southeast University (SEU), Nanjing, China. He has been ranked among the top 2% of global scientists at Stanford University for many consecutive years. Prof. Yu has high international reputation in the field of progressive collapse of structures and protective structures, and won the Best Paper Awards from the SCI journal Structures in 2023 and from the International Conference on Design & Analysis of Protective Structures (DAPS) in 2012. He has awarded “Distinguished Young Scholar Fund of Jiangsu Province” in 2018, and 3 grants from National Science Foundation of China. He served as a committee member in China to draft “Standard for anti-collapse design of building structures (T/CECS 392-2021)”, successfully organized 2024 China and Singapore International Conference on Applied Mechanics and Engineering (CSAME) and other two domestic academic conferences regarding disaster mitigation for civil structures. He is also a member of American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) and International Association of Protective Structures (IAPS).

Professor Werner RIEDEL Fraunhofer EMI, Germany

Prof. Dr. Werner Riedel is the Chief Scientist of the Division for Defense Science and Technology of Fraunhofer EMI. He received degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Technical Universities of Munich (1994) and Compiègne, France (1996). At Ernst-Mach-Institut (EMI) he specialized in numerical modelling of materials and components under dynamic loads. In
2000 he received the doctoral degree at the University der Bundeswehr München. Selected projects include the ADAMMO (European Space Agency, material
models for orbital debris impact on ISS, principal investigator), VITRUV (European Commission FP-7, urban security, consortium coordinator), as well as numerous projects for the German automotive, nuclear-electric and defense industry. Dr. Riedel is furthermore playing a key role for Fraunhofer EMI and the society’s Defense and Security Segment VVS in the European Defense Fund (EDF).

He was invited as visiting professor to Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2006/09 and serves at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Protective Technology Research Center since 2017, while continuously appointed as honorary professor by Furtwangen University in 2012 in Security & Safety Engineering. He has written and contributed to more than 150 scientific publications, and Standford University ranked him for 2022 and 2024 among the 2% best scientist worldwide. In 2025, he received the prestigious “Norman Jones Award” by the Int. Society of Protective Structures (IAPS).

Short biography:

Chief Scientist Defense of Fraunhofer EMI
Started in 1996 at EMI as Ph.D. student, defended at UniBW-M; thesis on concrete, developer of RHT concrete model in Autodyn and LS-Dyna
25 years at EMI in various positions, working with automotive, construction, nuclear, defence, space R&D partners and industries
Key role for Fraunhofer in the European Defense Fund (EDF)
Professor at Furtwangen University, Security and Safety Engineering, since 2012
visiting Professor at NTU Singapore, Protective Technology Research Centre, since 2017; former visiting Professor at TokyoTech (2006, 2010)
150 scientific publications as author or co-author, Scopus citation (“h-“) index of 25
“Norman Jones Award” by the Int. Society of Protective Structures (IAPS) 2025
ranked among the 2% best scientists worldwide, according to Standford University (2022 and 2024)

Professor Yanchao SHI Tianjin University, China

Professor Yanchao Shi is the Professor of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University and Dean of School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University. Professor Shi was jointly trained by Tianjin University and the University of Western Australia in Australia and obtained his Ph. D in 2009 from Tianjin University. He visited Auburn University in the USA as visiting scholar for one year in 2015. His research interests are blast resistant design of building structures, blast-induced progressive collapse protection of building structures and repair of building structures after explosion disaster. As a key member, he participated in the compilation of the first “Standard for Blast Protection Design of Civil Buildings” in China. He has published 150 journal papers. He has won the second prize of National awards on science and technology advancement, and the first prize of Tianjin Municipal awards on science and technology advancement twice. He is a member of International Association of Protective Structures and serves on editorial board of International Journal of Protective Structures.

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