Speakers
Ian Buckle
Dr. Buckle is a Foundation Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nevada Reno. He is a former director of the UNR Center for Civil Engineering Earthquake Research and the UNR Structural Engineering Laboratories. He earned his bachelor and doctoral degrees at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Dr. Buckle’s research interests include improving the seismic performance of highway bridges, design and retrofit criteria for bridges, earthquake protective systems, tsunami loads, and soil-structure-interaction for bridges with deep foundations. In addition to teaching graduate courses in these topics, he participates in short courses for design professionals in the seismic design of new bridges, retrofitting of existing bridges and the seismic isolation of new and existing bridges.
A former member and chair of the TRB Standing Committee on Seismic Design and Performance of Bridges (AKB50), Dr Buckle worked on the development of performance-based seismic design guidelines for bridges funded by NCHRP 12-106, and risk-targeted ground motions for bridges funded by AASHTO.
Dr. Buckle received the Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2016 in recognition of his many contributions to the seismic performance of bridges. He is also the recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Researcher of the Year Award given by the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education, and was made an Honorary Member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute in 2022.
William Gray
William is a recently retired civil engineer living in Havelock North. His post graduate geotechnical education led him into a successful career in highway geotechnical engineering, material research and teaching.
Rodney Hutchison
The Rise of Geotechnical Engineering in New Zealand
Rodney graduated from Canterbury University 1n 1975 with a BE degree in Civil Engineering. After working for four years at the Dunedin City Council as a civil/structural engineer, he was offered a place on the Imperial College, London Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering MSc course.
This led to an opportunity to work in Hong Kong for three years with Brickell Moss and Partners, partly on secondment to the HK Government. In 1984 he moved back to London to join L.G. Mouchel and Partners, working on various motorway and power station (coal and nuclear) projects. In 1987, he joined Exploration Associates Ltd and later Soil Mechanics Ltd as Chief Engineer/Technical Director. Soil Mechanics was, at that time, the largest geotechnical drilling and testing company in the UK.
During his time with Exploration Associates he, along with Len Threadgold, chaired the Association of Geotechnical Specialists working party on electronic data transfer, which developed the AGS Data Transfer Format.
In 2000, he returned to New Zealand to join KGA, which he then took over in 2005. In 2012, he set up the KGA Christchurch office as part of the Christchurch reconstruction effort.
He has also been an Engineering New Zealand CPEng practice area assessor and assisted the Auckland Council with their recent rewrite of Land Development and Subdivision: Code of Practice, Chapter 2.
He retired from KGA in 2022 and now enjoys the pleasures of fly fishing and vintage cars.
Rob Park
Rob graduated from the University of Canterbury with a PhD degree in civil engineering in 1987 under a “guru” of bridge seismic design the late Professor Nigel Priestley. Rob has bridge engineering experience in New Zealand, Australia, Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, Guam and Qatar. Rob is currently working from a Manila base for the Metro Pacific Tollways Development Corporation on technical overview and value engineering of bridge projects. Over the past 15 years or so, Rob has developed a lot of experience in value engineering of bridge projects with the aim of appropriately (code compliant and constructible) reducing bridge bulk, cost and carbon footprint.
This event is organised by Conferences & Events Ltd, Wellington, Auckland, Nelson & Nationwide. We are a New Zealand business.