Low Carbon Materials and Technologies for a Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure

Dr. Rathish Kumar Pancharathi is a Professor of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Warangal He completed his Doctor of Engineering in 2006 with the prestigious Japanese Govt. Monbusho Japanese Government Scholarship and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow during 2009-2010 in Japan under the Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences (JSPS).

He has published 235 Technical articles including 127 International and National Journals and 108 International and National Conferences of repute. He has contributed 17 Book Chapters and authored 3 Books. He has Three Patents granted to his credit and Three more patents are in advanced stages of grant. He has guided 11 Doctoral students and 13 more students are presently working with him. He has guided 73 M.Tech students and 39 B. Tech batches.

He is a recipient of several awards including Aftab Mufti Medal, Monbusho and JSPS Scholarships of the Japanese Government, Best Engineering Researcher Award from NITW, HeritageScholarship to pursue research at IST Portugal, Danish Government Scholarship, Italy Government Post-Doctoral Scholarship, Heritage Scholarship under Erasmus Mundus, AIT Fellowship, ASEM-Duo India Fellowship, Slovakian Government Scholarship, Jawaharlal Nehru memorial fellowship, Earth leader award and Distinguished Alumnus award. He received Two best paper awards. Prof Kumar is a member of the Research Advisory Council member of the National Council for Cement and Building Materials (NCCBM), Hyderabad for the past six years.

He represents several Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) committees like CED-4 ie Lime and Gypsum Products of the BIS, Preparation of Handbook of lime for the BIS, Convenor for revision of all parts of Indian Standard Code IS 2542-1978 including tests for Gypsum, Plaster, Concrete and Mortars, Member of Revision of Indian Standard Code IS 712:1984 ie Specification for building limes. He is on the IRC B8 Committee of Inspection, Maintenance and Rehabilitation of Bridges. He is on the editorial board of Journal of Facta Universtatis, Journal of Cement Wapno Beton among others and is a reviewer of several International Journals published by Elsevier, Thomas Telford, Taylor and Francis etc.

Prof. Christopher K. Y. Leung is a full professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He served as the head of Department from July 2009 to June 2015. His research interests include mechanics of composite materials, application of composites in civil engineering, fracture mechanics and mechanical aspects of fiber-optic sensing. He has published over 300 journal and conference papers and delivered plenary/keynote talks at international conferences in North America, Europe, UK, China, and other countries. Prof. Leung has received a number of research-related awards, including the Best Applied Research Paper Award from ASCE Journal of Composites in Construction (2007), the First-Class Award in Natural Sciences from the China Ministry of Education (2012), and the Second-Class State Natural Science Award from the China State Department (2015).

Prof. Chandra Kishen J M, is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He has been actively involved in research, teaching and industrial consulting activities for the past twenty-seven years. His research areas include fracture and fatigue behaviour of plain and reinforced concrete, cementitious interfaces with cold joints, residual strength prediction of concrete structures, structural health assessment and monitoring, repair and rehabilitation of damaged structures. He has set up a unique bi-axial fatigue testing facility at IISc for conducting fatigue tests in direct tension, compression and combinations on large concrete specimens and monitoring the evolution of microcracks through acoustic emission sensing and digital imaging. He was nominated as the Fellow of the International Association of Fracture Mechanics of Concrete and Concrete Structures (IAFraMCoS) in 2016. Prof. Chandra Kishen has been contributing as a principal investigator in several research projects sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Atomic Energy, Indian Space Research Organizations and the Indian Railways. He has carried extensive field studies on railway bridges and highway viaducts. 

Prof. Chandra Kishen is an active consultant and has helped the industry solve challenging problems involving rehabilitation of metro girders damaged due to construction faults, large IT infrastructure damaged due to fire accidents, highway viaducts damaged due to loss of prestress and others. He is providing technical support to various irrigation and dam projects, in recognition of which, the Government of Karnataka awarded him the Prof. Satish Dhawan Young Engineer State award. Prof. Chandra Kishen is a popular teacher and has delivered numerous technical lectures throughout the country in short-term courses, faculty development programmes, and conferences. He has trained field engineers on good and safe construction practices as part of the quality assurance program of the Bangalore Metro.