WIT CONFERENCES - Key Persons
Alexander Brebbia graduated as an engineer before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with PwC.
Since then he has spent over 20 years as a private equity investor sitting on the Boards of numerous businesses including those in the engineering and manufacturing sectors.
Alexander Cheng is Dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Mississippi.
He is also a Fellow of the Wessex Institute. He is a renowned expert on Boundary Element Methods and has written numerous books, well over 100 refereed journal papers and a similar number of papers for international conferences.
He was awarded the prestigious George Green Medal for his work on Boundary Element Research. The Medal is co-sponsored by Elsevier.
Professor Antonio Tadeu from the University of Coimbra has collaborated with the Institute in many conferences and publications.
He is an expert in computational modelling and has applied techniques for the solution of structural, acoustic, fluid dynamics and many other problems.
He has recently been awarded the prestigious George Green Medal for his research into Boundary Element Methods.
Daniele de Wrachien is Professor of Irrigation and Drainage at the Department of Agricultural Engineering of the State University of Milan from where he graduated in Geology.
His research interests are water resources management; irrigation and drainage technology; modelling of transport processes in porous media; debris and hyperconcentrated flow simulation; flood control and mitigation measures; desertification and environmental impacts of climate change.
Daniele is author of many papers in his field of interest and he has participated in numerous scientific conferences. His activities at WIT have included the organisation of special seminars and conferences on water resources, flood and debris flow.
Among his many distinctions, he has been President of EURAgEng (European Society of Agricultural Engineers) and member of the Executive Board of ICID (International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage).
Job Titles:
- Professor at Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics
Dmitry Sitnikov is a Professor at Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics in Ukraine, in the Department of Systems Engineering, Computer Science Faculty, and is an expert on data mining and knowledge discovery.
Dr. Paolo Zannetti, QEP is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Sciences at the Wessex Institute (WIT), Ashurst, UK.
He has collaborated with WIT for more than three decades:
• From 1980 he has delivered the Air Pollution and Pollution Modeling courses at WIT.
• He founded as Editor-in-Chief the WIT journal Environmental Software in 1986, now published by Elsevier as Environmental Modeling and Software.
• He founded as Editor-in-Chief the WIT conference cycle ENVIROSOFT (1986-1998).
• In 1990 he authored the WIT textbook Air Pollution Modeling, which was the first comprehensive book in the field and is still a widely used textbook.
• Starting in 1983, he has been one of the founding editors of the WIT AIR POLLUTION conference cycle.
• In 1993-96 he produced as Editor-in-Chief the three volumes of the WIT book series Environmental Modeling.
Dr. Zannetti has performed studies and scientific research in environmental sciences for four decades. His activities have covered pure research in the fields of atmospheric sciences and numerical modeling, written publications, seminars and courses, project management, environmental consulting, editorial productions, and expert testimony. His major field of investigation and competence is air pollution. He has written more than 300 publications, and 40+ books and book chapters, including the book "Air Pollution Modeling" ¹, completed in 1990, which was the first comprehensive book in the field and is still today a widely used textbook.
He has studied many air pollution cases throughout the world. In particular, in the first phase of his scientific career, he studied and modeled the air pollution affecting the city of Venice, Italy 2, and was the project manager in Kuwait of the first comprehensive air pollution study (monitoring and modeling) in the Persian Gulf. 3 In the last 20 years, Dr. Zannetti has investigated hundreds of accidental and regular releases caused by industrial, transportation, and agricultural activities, throughout the world.
He has often used computer models to simulate the transport and fate of atmospheric chemicals. In most of these cases, he simulated the ambient concentrations caused by the emissions using his own computer models (AVACTA II 4 , MONTECARLO 5) and/or those developed and recommended by government agencies, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). In particular, he performed pioneering work for the development of new Lagrangian modeling techniques in which air pollution is simulated by computer methods using a series of independent segments 6, puffs 7, or particles. 8
He is often invited to present talks at conferences and seminars throughout the world. In particular, he has taught air pollution courses in Italy (University of Bari-Taranto), California (Berkeley Extension), Kuwait (Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, KISR, and Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, KFAS), and at the Wessex Institute of Technology, WIT, where he is Professor of Environmental Sciences.
Dr. Zannetti's professional credentials have been certified 9 with the title of Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP), given by the Institute of Professional Environmental Practice (IPEP). The QEP certification recognizes professional achievements for environmental professionals and their compliance with the highest of ethical and professional standards.
EDUCATION
• Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP), Institute of Professional Environmental Practice (IPEP) (www.ipep.org) (http://ipep.org/applications/qep-certification/)
Professor Dragan Poljak from the University of Split, Croatia, is an international expert on electromagnetic radiation and carries out research in this field. Prof Poljak has been awarded the National Prize for Sciences by the Croatian Committee of Science and Technology, sponsored by the National Parliament.
He has numerous publications in his field, including several well-known books.
Eckart Schnack is Professor of Solid Mechanics at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.
He is an expert in numerical methods of continuum mechanics and on experimental methods of mechanics.
He has over 200 publications to his name and has obtained many prestigious awards throughout his career.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Various Subjects Relating to Security for the Engineering Master
Fabio Garzia is Professor of various subjects relating to security for the Engineering Master's program on Safety, Security and Civil Protection Engineering at SAPIENZA - University of Rome (Italy), as well as various other Master's and PhD programs at the same and other Universities, both in Italy and abroad.
He is Adjunct Professor at WIT.
He is the author of more than 150 publications in international scientific journals and conferences, reviewer for different international scientific journals and member of different committees and working groups regarding security and ICT.
He is author or editor of about 23 different books regarding safety, security and ICT, co-Chairman of SAFE - International Conference on Safety and Security Engineering series, organized by WIT and SAPIENZA, and Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Safety and Security Engineering, IIETA - International Information and Engineering Technology Association (Canada).
He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (Salzburg, Austria).
George Pinder is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Vermont in Burlington.
His area of research is the development and application of applied mathematics, especially numerical methods to solve groundwater contamination and supply problems.
George is author of several books and many scientific and technical papers. He has also acted as a consultant in many important projects.
He became associated with WIT when it was first started and has participated in many training and publishing activities. One of these initiatives was the launching of the Journal of Water Resources, now published by Elsevier.
Giorgio Passerini is Associate Professor at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale e Scienze Matematiche at the Universita Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy.
His research team has focused on the following three areas: air pollution assessment and remediation; the evaluation of airborne pollutants due to the treatment of organic fraction of municipal solid waste; Smart Cities and management and optimisation of municipalities with special attention to energy consumption.
He represents WIT at many of our conferences and has been associated with many training, research and publishing activities at WIT.
Job Titles:
- Professor
- WIT 's Representative
Professor Jerry Connor is WIT's representative in the Boston (USA) office and a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute.
He is Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is internationally renowned for his work in software engineering and analytical techniques.
He collaborates in many of WIT's activities in addition to research, such as publications and conference scientific and technical organisation.
Job Titles:
- Professor Emeritus at the University of Stavanger
Ove Gudmestad is Professor Emeritus at the University of Stavanger and Adjunct Professor of Cold Climate Technology at the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø. His main research interests are oil and gas development, marine technology and operations, cold climate engineering, and offshore wind engineering. He graduated from the University of Bergen and studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Job Titles:
- Members of the WIT Board of Directors
- Professor
• Costas, M., Diaz, J., Romera, L., Hernandez, S. A multi-objective surrogate-based optimization of the crashworthiness of a hybrid car absorber. International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 88, pp. 46-54, 2014.
•Baldomir, A., Kusano, I., Hernandez, S., Jurado, J.A. A reliability study for the Messina Bridge with respect to flutter phenomena considering uncertainties in experimental and numerical data. Computer and Structures, Vol. 128, pp. 91-100, 2013
• Diaz, J., Pereira, F., Romera, L., Hernandez, S. Probabilistic assessment of the structural failure of single lap bonded joints. International Journal of Adhesion and Adhesives, Vol. 37, pp. 70-78, 2012.
• Baldomir, A., Hernandez, S., Diaz, J., Fontan, A., Sensitivity analysis and optimum solutions by updating active constraints: application in aircraft structural design. Research Journal on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization. Vol. 40, pp. 797-814, 2011.
• Nieto, F., Hernandez, S., Jurado, J.A., Mosquera, A. Analytical approach to sensitivity analysis of flutter speed in bridges considering variable mass deck. Advances in Engineering Software, Vol. 42, number 4, pp. 117-129, 2011.
• Diaz, J., Romera, L., Hernandez, S., Baldomir, A. Benchmarking of three-dimensional finite element models of CFRP single -lap bonded joints. International Journal of Adhesion and Adhesives, Vol. 30, number 3, pp. 178-189, 2010.
• Kusano, I., Baldomir, A., Jurado J.A., Hernandez, S., Probabilistic optimization of a suspension bridge deck considering correlation among wind related variables. 7 th European African Wind Engineering Conference, EACWE 2017, Liege (Belgium), 4-7 July 2017.
• Hernandez, S., Diaz, J., Baldomir, A., Cid, M., Lopez, C. A comparison of reliability based structural optimization methodologies in the design of aircraft structures. ICOSSAR 2013, 11th International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability, New York (USA), June 16-20, 2013.
• Jurado, J.A., Sanchez, R., Hernandez, S. Wind tunnel sectional tests for identification of flutter derivatives and vortex shedding in long span bridges. Fluid Structure Interaction VII, C.A. Brebbia y G.R.Rodríguez (eds.) pp. 51-60, WIT Press, 2013.
• Hernandez, S., Baldomir, A., Perez, I. Optimization of cable cross sectional area in long span cable stayed bridges. ASCE 2012 Structures Congress.Chicago, USA, March 29-31, 2012.
Professor Santiago Hernández from the University of A Coruña, Spain, is a leading expert in structural engineering, Bridge Design and Optimisation Techniques.
He is Co-Chairman of many WIT conferences, Adjunct Professor, as well as a member of the WIT Board of Directors. Santiago has numerous scientific publications and has written many books.
Professor Syngellakis has a long career in teaching and research in solid and structural mechanics. He has published well over 100 papers on advanced applications of analytical and computational techniques to a wide range of structural engineering and material technology problems.
His novel numerical work is mainly based on the Boundary Element Method and he also has considerable experience in the use of general-purpose finite element codes for advanced micromechanical, bioengineering, fatigue and fracture mechanics simulations.
He has supervised many doctoral programmes to completion and participated in various industry-sponsored projects.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Hydraulic Engineering at the Politecnico
Stefano Mambretti is Associate Professor of Hydraulic Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, where he teaches and carries out research.
Ted Hromadka is Professor at West Point and Principal at Hromadka & Associates, Costa Mesa, California.
His expertise includes designing master plans for surface water hydrology and the development of computer systems. In addition, he has written plans for water quality enhancement, sediment and debris protection, and run-off management.
Dr Hromadka has written more than 20 books on various topics related to hydrology.