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Keynote Speakers2026 Robert L'Hermite Medalist Claire White, Princeton University, United States of America Keynote Speakers
Plenary Keynotes Surendra Shah, Northwestern University, United States of America Daniel Franks, University of Queensland, Australia Robert Flatt and Mareike Thiedeitz, ETH Zürich, Switzerland Kolawole Adisa Olonade, University of Lagos, Nigeria Gabriele Tebaldi, University of Parma, Italy More to be communicated Session Keynotes Karen Scrivener, EPFL, Switzerland Mark Alexander, University of Cape Town, South Africa Daman Panesar, University of Toronto, Canada Kamal H. Khayat, Missouri S&T, United States of America Enrico Sassoni, University of Bologna, Italy Su Taylor, Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom Eshan Dave, University of New Hampshire, United States of America Mohammed Sonebi, Queen's University Belfast, United Kingdom Alice Titus, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Hisham Hafez, University of Leeds, United Kingdom Sofiane Amziane, Université Clermont Auvergne, France William Wilson, Université de Sherbrooke, Canada John Kolawole, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom Janina Kanjee, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa More to be communicated Awardee Keynotes Ravindra Gettu, IIT Madras, India Joanitta Ndawulaa, Angela Tetteh Tawiahb, Areej Gamieldiena aUniversity of Cape Town, South Africa About the Keynotes and Speakers
Ignorance, Inquiry and Innovation driven cutting-edge research in cement and concreteProf. Surendra P. Shah Over the past two centuries, cement-based materials have continuously evolved, with major technological advances such as reinforced concrete, supplementary cementitious materials, and chemical admixtures significantly improving performance, workability, and sustainability. In recent years, the field has entered a new phase driven by green and low-carbon principles, integrating emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, additive manufacturing, and artificial intelligence to impart new functionalities and meet the demands of high-performance infrastructure. This progress reflects an ongoing process of scientific inquiry and innovation that continues to shape the future development of concrete technology. CV Dr. Surendra Shah is distinguished for his seminal research on synthesizing engineering mechanics and material science. Professor Shah has made unique, original and extensive contributions to better understand and define properties of cement-based materials and developing new advanced materials which has become a world standard in these fields. He is responsible for developing high performance concrete, fiber reinforced concrete, self-consolidating concrete, shrinkage reducing admixtures, carbon nano-tube reinforced cement-based composites and extrusion processing of concrete. These have revolutionized the way modern concretes are used worldwide. Dr. Shah has been recognized with many awards and honors, notably he is a member of the National Academy of Inventors, National Academy of Engineering, Academy of Athens, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Indian Academy of Engineering, German Academy of Science and Engineering, and the Russian Academy of Engineering. Dr. Shah is currently the Director of the Center for Advanced Construction Materials and Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is Walter P Murphy Emeritus Professor at Northwestern University, where he was the director of pioneering NSF funded Science and technology Centre on Advanced Cement based Materials.
Human settlements and the mineral limits to sustainabilityProf. Daniel Franks Over millennia, human settlements mirrored geology. Bricks emerged where there was clay, masons learned to craft where there was stone, and the alchemy of mortars and concretes was intuited where limestone and volcanic pozzolan were available, producing endemic construction from the minerals at hand. The industrial era disrupted this relationship, as ordinary Portland cement and standardised construction systems decoupled building from local mineral endowments and the skills that emerged around them, enabling unprecedented scalability while embedding high energy use, exceptional demand for sand, and greenhouse gas emissions into shelter and infrastructure. Today, climate constraints, transport emissions, affordability and supply-chain fragility are forcing a partial return to endemic mineral systems through blended cements, calcined clays, fly ash, biogenic mineral ash, brick-making and stone paving, but this return sits uneasily within a sustainability discourse shaped by biological metaphors of renewability and regeneration. Durable minerals, categorised as inherently unsustainable are targeted for substitution. This keynote asks: how should we account for the geological foundations of human settlement in sustainability thinking, when sustainability itself is built on the biological metaphor of a living system? CV Professor Daniel Franks is Director of the Global Centre for Mineral Security at the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute and is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Professor Franks is known internationally for his work on the interconnections between minerals, materials and sustainable development, with a particular focus on the role of minerals in poverty reduction. He introduced key concepts in development studies including ‘mineral poverty’, ‘mineral security,’ and ‘development minerals;’ and has worked with public and private sector partners to implement breakthrough sustainability innovations, such as OreSand to drastically reduce mine waste, and ‘social impact management plans,’ a regulatory tool now adopted throughout the world. He is the author of more than 160 publications, including 40 publications for the United Nations. His research has appeared in journals such as Nature, Nature Sustainability and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and is available in 11 languages. He has field experience at more than 100 mining and energy sites and 40 countries. 
Sustainable Road Pavement Materials: Still-Open Issues and Emerging ChallengesProf. Gabriele Tebaldi The field of road pavement materials is currently facing major challenges related to their integration into a circular economy framework (e.g., which materials can be recycled within asphalt mixtures without reducing performance or compromising recyclability). At the same time, several unresolved issues remain in commonly used materials (e.g., how to properly assess damage levels for efficient maintenance planning). CV Gabriele Tebaldi is Associate Professor at the Department of Engineering and Architecture, University of Parma, and Visiting Research Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New Hampshire. He was awarded Fellowships by RILEM and the Association of Asphalt Pavement Technologists. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Road Materials and Pavement Design and as Associate Editor of Materials and Structures. His research activity focuses on road pavement materials, with particular emphasis on asphalt mixtures, recycled and sustainable materials, pavement performance, and durability. His work addresses both experimental characterization and performance-based design, with special attention to circular economy principles. Within RILEM, he is Chairman of the Technical Committee Performance-Based Asphalt Recycling and serves as an Expert in the Technical Activities Committee. He is a former President and member of the Steering Committee of the European Asphalt Technology Association, and former President and member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Asphalt Pavements.
Calcined clays for sub-Saharan AfricaProf. Mark Alexander Many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries lack good quality SCMs for use in concrete construction. With the growing demand for more sustainable construction binders and resource minimisation, the focus is shifting to calcined clays as an excellent SCM for SSA. This presentation will present these opportunities and also discuss some of the challenges inherent in this technology for SSA. CV Mark Alexander is Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering and a Senior Research Scholar in the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Distinguished Professor in the Indian Institute of Technology (Madras), Chennai, India. He has been an academic and researcher since the early 1980s, teaching at the University of the Witwatersrand and at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He teaches and researches in cement and concrete materials engineering relating to design and construction, with interests in concrete durability, service life design and prediction, concrete sustainability, repair and rehabilitation of concrete structures, performance-based-approaches, low-carbon cements and recycled aggregates. He has considerable expertise and knowledge on use of construction materials in the southern African and broader contexts. His work has an emphasis on basic science and engineering of these materials, and on characterisation of local and regional concrete materials.
Calcined clays for sub-Saharan AfricaProf. Su Taylor This talk presents an overview of recent research in structural health monitoring (SHM) aimed at promoting net zero carbon construction with a focus on the FlexiArchTM , a Queen’s University Belfast patented flexible unreinforced pre-cast concrete arch bridge system, and ArchIMEDES, a computer vision deformation monitoring tool to assess structural response. Also results from full-scale tests in a building in Canary Wharf, London, with three very low energy concretes which were monitored up to ULS loading using embedded fibre optic sensors with the prospect of long-term monitoring for the wider impact of reducing carbon in future build and retrofit projects.A. CV Su Taylor was the first female Professor of Structural Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and currently leads the Intelligent and Sustainable Infrastructure Group. She is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers and Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Ireland. She is a former Vice President of the international Society for Civil Structural Health Monitoring (SCSHM which was formerly ISHMII) and recent Dean of Research for the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Queen’s. Su has many years’ experience in the use of Structural Health Monitoring for intelligent infrastructure and the development of low energy concretes. She has published over 300 papers in top international journals and peer reviewed international conference proceedings. She led research resulting in the world’s first Basalt FRP reinforced concrete bridge deck and the ‘intelligent infrastructure’ work-package of a £5M EPSRC funded research project Towards Net Zero Public Transport. Su is currently leading the development of a floating/sinkable BFRP cellular concrete foundation with embedded fibre optic sensors for off-shore wave renewable energy funded under a €20M EU project ONDEP.
Would urbanizing with structural bio-based materials save carbon?Dr. Hisham Hafez Numerous studies have concluded that bio-based materials are lower carbon options for urban building construction while disregarding resource availability and harvesting emissions. This keynote evaluates low-carbon concrete in comparison to structural engineered bio-based materials and stabilized earth blocks for three issues: embodied carbon, material supply limitations and production scalability. Bio-based materials could only supply <14% of global demand due to limited forest area within assumed conditions of sustainable harvesting yields and while overcoming significant logistical and social barriers. CV Hisham is a post-doctorate research fellow at the University of Leeds specialized in performance-based environmental impact assessments of building materials with a focus on low-carbon concrete. For the past 2 years, he has been leading the concrete technology and life cycle assessment research work packages on the United Kingdom Research Institution (UKRI) funded projects TransFIRe and Eureka. His expertise combine applied research methods in the low-carbon building materials area and industrial experience in the African market. In 2013 and 2017 respectively, Hisham was among the core team members of two Egyptian start-ups. Karm Solar, currently the largest private energy provider in the MENA region and Hand Over Projects, a turn-key sustainable buildings solution provider specialised in natural building materials. 
Towards Future Bio-Based Construction Materials: From Plant Resources to Low-Carbon Multifunctional Structures?Prof. Sofiane Amziane This contribution focuses on geopolymer matrices reinforced with locally sourced plant fibres from Eldoret Kenya. The keynote provides the scientific foundation, multi-scale challenges and societal impact of bio-based and mineral–vegetal composite materials, with a particular emphasis on their relevance for sustainable construction in African and global contexts. CV Sofiane Amziane is the Founder and main organizer of the International Conference on Bio-Based Building Materials (ICBBM), launched in Clermont-Ferrand in 2015 and now a leading global event in the field, with recent editions in Belfast (2019), Barcelona (2021), Vienna (2023), and Rio de Janeiro (2025). He also actively contributes to international scientific communities, particularly within RILEM, where he chaired Technical Committee 236-BBM on bio-based building materials. Author of numerous scientific articles, book chapters, and edited volumes, his work focuses on the multiphysical performance, durability, and environmental impact of bio-based concretes, with the ambition to integrate them widely into sustainable construction practices. 
Valorisation of Gypsum and Phosphogypsum Resources in Africa for Sustainable ConstructionProf. Mohammed Sonebi This contribution explores the strategic valorisation of natural gypsum and phosphogypsum (PG) to address Africa’s growing demand for sustainable building materials. While natural gypsum remains a staple, the accumulation of PG presents significant environmental challenges due to acidic and radioactive impurities. The study characterises these materials and evaluates viable conversion routes, specifically focusing on soil stabilisation, brick manufacturing, and industrial plaster. By reviewing regional case studies, the research highlights how tailored regulatory frameworks can transform industrial waste into a resource. Ultimately, the paper advocates for circular economy practices to bolster infrastructure development across the African continent. CV Professor Mohammed Sonebi is Professor of Sustainable and Structural Materials in the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. He is an internationally recognised expert in sustainable construction materials, with research spanning low-carbon and low-energy concrete, self-compacting concrete, bio-based and waste-derived materials, 3D printing, grouting and rheology, durability, and structural health monitoring. Professor Sonebi is a Fellow of RILEM, where he served as Regional Convenor for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Chair of Technical Committee TC-266 on rheological properties of cement-based materials, in addition to contributing to numerous other RILEM committees. He is also a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) and the Institute of Concrete Technology (ICT/UK), having served as Vice-Chair of ACI Committee 552 (Cementitious Grouting) and as a voting member of several ACI, ASTM, fib, and ISHMII committees. 
How rheology shapes our knowledge of concrete: insights from plastic cracking and 3D printingDr. John Temitope Kolawole Rheology provides a unified framework for understanding early-age concrete behaviour. In plastic settlement and shrinkage, cracking results from an imbalance between gravity/evaporation-induced stresses and the material’s rheological ability to relax them, governed by yield stress, viscosity, and structural build-up. In 3D printing, these same parameters characterise flow, shape stability, and layer stacking and bonding. This keynote, drawing on plastic cracking and 3D printing as references, demonstrates that concrete performance depends on time-dependent rheology, which continuously shapes our understanding of evidence-based mechanisms and control of early-age behaviour. CV Dr John Kolawole is an Assistant Professor in Structural Engineering at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he specialises in sustainable construction materials and applied rheology. Before this, he was a Vice Chancellor Independent Research Fellow at Loughborough University, UK. With over 15 years of experience in cement science and concrete technology, his expertise spans across integrating waste materials into cement matrices, carbon sequestration, functional materials, rheology of binder systems, concrete durability, and 3D concrete printing. His research bridges materials science and sustainable construction. In his former role as a materials and rheology specialist, he contributed to the world’s pioneering and UK-leading consortium advancing 3D concrete printing (3DCP) technology, underpinning the world’s first 3D-printed cantilevered bus canopy. His work also uncovered scientific discovery regarding the origins of anisotropy of printed concrete, providing rheology-based observations into performance issues. Given concrete’s common plastic shrinkage problem in tropical and arid regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, John completed his TWAS-funded PhD at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. He investigated the role of rheology in the plastic cracking of early-age concrete, developing a rheo-physics framework for concrete settlement/shrinkage cracking and establishing a novel rheological testing method – his work received four prominent awards. John began his career as an academic at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, where he conducted research on valorising local waste streams as supplementary cementitious materials. Currently, he is an active member of RILEM's Technical Committees. . |
