Keynote speakers

Stavroula Kontoe

Stavroula Kontoe is a Senior Lecturer in Geotechnics at Imperial College London, specialising in the development and application of numerical methods for geotechnical structures under seismic and dynamic loading. She holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (2001), an MSc in Soil Mechanics and Engineering Seismology (2002) and a PhD in Computational Geomechanics (2006) from Imperial College London (ICL). Dr Kontoe has led several research projects on the seismic performance of tunnels, retaining structures and dams, on site response analysis and its incorporation in seismic hazard studies, topographic effects on seismic ground motion, modelling vibrations induced by pile driving and slope stability in strain softening materials. Her publication record includes 35 journal and more than 40 conferences papers. She won the 2008 BGA Medal, the 2012 Computers & Geotechnics outstanding reviewer award and the 2017 Shamsher Prakash Foundation Excellence in Geotechnical Teaching prize. She sits on the editorial board of Computers & Geotechnics, has served on the Geotechnique Advisory Panel (2013-2015), represents the UK in Technical Committee TC203 of ISSMGE and in the European and International Associations of Earthquake Engineering. She is the vice-chair of the UK Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics.

Title of the Keynote Lecture
“Seismic response of earthfill and rockfill embankment dams”

Emmanuel Robbe

Emmanuel Robbe is a dam specialist engineer with more than 10 years' experience in concrete dam’s behavior. Currently employed by EDF, he’s in charge of safety assessment of concrete dams in operation, under static or seismic loads. He’s also in charge of the development of numerical tools dedicated to dam’s civil engineers and is greatly involved in R&D activities about seismic and non-linear behavior of concrete dams, in particular the behavior or arch dams in wide valleys. Is member of the French working group in charge of the redaction of the guide for the arch dam safety evaluation in France.

Title of the Keynote Lecture
“Earthquakes records on concrete dams: benefits, difficulties and proposition of an international database”