Research

Research Interests

My research interests are in the areas of geotechnical engineering, soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering, in-situ testing techniques, and advanced soil mechanics laboratory tests. Please feel free to navigate through the side menu for more information about my research interests, publications, honors, and courses.

Research Group

CURRENT PhD Students

Shayan Hashemi (2019 - present)

Shayan completed his MESc studies from Amirkabir University of Technology. His is using Discrete Element Modeling to study soil behavior. 

Grytan Sarkar (2018 - present)

Grytan completed his MESc studies from UBC and was a faculty at Khulna University in Bangladesh before joining Western. Grytan is studying the dynamic behavior of organic soils and peat for his PhD research.

Amirreza Fotovvat (2018 - present)

Amirreza completed his MESc studies from Amirkabir University of Technology. He is researching the liquefaction behavior of mine tailings, and innovative methods for improving and strengthening them. His research will lead to safer mine waste management and tailings dams.

Osama Drbe (2015 - present)
Osama completed his MESc studies at Western on the behaviour of micropiles.  He is currently working towards his PhD degree and investigating downdrag forces on pile foundations.  He is using data from field measurements instrumented piles, laboratory experiments and numerical modelling.  The outcome of Osama's research will provide more accurate solutions for the determination of negative skin friction and pile design.

CURRENT MESc Students

Guillermo Riveros
Guillermo is investigating the cyclic behavior of gold mine tailings and methods to improve their earthquake resistance.

Alex Bilson Darko (co-supervisor S. Molnar)
Alex is studying in-situ geophysical methods for determing shear wave velocity and corroborating them with laboratory measurements.

Ronit Ganguly
Ronit is investigating new methods of characterizing in-situ soils.

 

SUPERVISED PhD STUDENTS

Naemeh Naghavi Abiazani (2012 - 2017, co-supervised with H. El Naggar)

 Thesis Title: Liquefaction assessment of carbonate-silica silty sands using energy, state-parameter, and shear wave velocity

SUPERVISED MESc Students

Keyvan Mirbaha (2015 - 2017)

Thesis Title: Bi-directional cyclic behavior and liquefaction analysis of a silica-carbonate sand

Stephen Jones (2015 - 2017)

        Thesis Title: Liquefaction susceptibility analysis of Fraser River sand in miniature cone penetration tests and cyclic direct simple shear tests

Speideh Damavandinejhad (2012 - 2014)

Thesis Title: Development of a laboratory-scale CPT.

Ali El-Takch (2012 - 2013) (co-supervised with Dr. H. M. El Naggar)

Thesis Title: Cyclic and post-cyclic response of silt and sandy silt soils.

Tarek Omar (2011 - 2013)

Thesis Title: Specimen size effect on shear behavior of sand in triaxial testing.

SUPERVISED MEng Projects

Samanth Surapaneni (2015 - 2016)

        Project Title: Coefficient of consolidation of low-plastic fine-grained soils

Tae Young Noh (2015 - 2016)

Project Title: Effect of waste leachate on mechanicl behavior of clay.

Stewart Handrahan (2014 - 2015)

Project Title: Evaluation of seismic earth pressure in cohesive backfill soils.

Muhammad Umar (2014 - 2015)

Project Title: Comparison of methods for interpreting pre-consolidation pressure.

Gholamreza Jarghi-Araghi (2013 - 2014)

Project Title: Settlement of a bridge pier on a deep clay deposit.

Hamidreza Pourtaghi (2012 - 2013)

Project Title: Effect of ambient temperature in triaxial testing.

Houman Farbodfar (2012 - 2013)

Project Title: Effect of particle size on the results of direct shear tests.

Fatemen Eghbali-Zarj (2011 - 2012)

Project Title: Geotechnical challenges of geothermal piles.

Negin Eftekhari (2011 - 2012)

Project Title: Analysis of broken-back retaining walls.

SUPERVISED Undergraduate Thesis

Robert Querengesser (2015 - 2016)

Thesis Title: Measuring electrical resistivity and shear wave velocity in a triaxial cell.

Zaid Al-Qaysi (2013 - 2014)

Thesis Title: Electrical resistivity of cohesionless soils.

Nichole Aga Baczynski (2012 - 2013)

Thesis Title: A review of geothermal energy and its status in Canada.

 

Opportunities in My Group

If you are interested in pursuing graduate studies in geotechnical engineering please contact me by email.