Keynote Speakers
Michel Virlogeux
Michel Virlogeux is much in demand as an international, world class speaker and is the main keynote for this conference. Michel will deliver more than one keynote address.
Michel Virlogeux graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1967 and from the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in 1970. In 1980 he became Head of the Large Concrete Bridge Division of the French Highway Administration and in 1987 of the Large Bridge Division, Steel and Concrete. During 20 years he designed more than 100 bridges, including the Normandy Bridge which, for four years, held the world record for the longest cable-stayed bridge.
Since 1995, as an independent consulting engineer, his major achievements include participation in the construction of the "Second Tagus Crossing" in Lisbon and the design of the Millau Viaduct in France. Several of his bridges have received architectural awards. Michel himself has also received many awards, including:
the inaugural IABSE Prize in Venice (1983)
the Award of Excellence of the Engineering News Record (1995)
the Gold Medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers (1979)
the Gold Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers (2005)
the 2003 IABSE Award of Merit in Structural Engineering in recognition of "his major contributions leading to very significant progress in the field of civil engineering, in particular through the development of external prestressing, landmark cable-stayed bridges and composite structures".
Michel Sponsors
Thank you to our sponsors who have assisted with bringing Michel to New Zealand.
Campbell R. Middleton
Dr Campbell Middleton is a Senior Lecturer in Structural Engineering at Cambridge University. He joined the staff in 1989 after nearly ten years experience in bridge construction and design in Australia and with Arup in London. He is Chairman of the UK Bridge Owners Forum, established in 2000 by representatives of the major bridge owning organisations in the UK to identify research needs and priorities for the bridge infrastructure. He was elected Fellow of the Transport Research Foundation in 2005 and acts as a specialist consultant on bridge assessment to clients in the UK and abroad. He is also involved in the development of codes of practice for the assessment and management of concrete bridges.
The main areas of interest for his research group in Cambridge are computational collapse analysis, risk and reliability analysis, computer vision for bridge evaluation, non-destructive testing and inspection and wireless sensor networks for structural health monitoring of bridge performance.
Peter Balfe
Peter Balfe has a broad level of knowledge and experience across road engineering technologies. Having joined Sinclair Knight Merz in 2004, he is currently leading the Independent Reviewer team for the EastLink Project, which is Victoria's largest privately financed public infrastructure project comprising 45 km toll road with a value of AS$2.6 billion.
In his current role he has developed more systematic processes of independent verification that focus on making the D&C Contractor's Quality Assurance more accountable, and provide clients with a more transparent and responsive independent verification service. He has also established more effective monitoring and reporting systems that can be readily transferred to other projects. He has also overseen the verification of the Tolling System and traffic management and control systems for the EastLink project.
Prior to his current appointment Peter had a distinguished career with VicRoads, including six years as Deputy Chief Executive, and twelve years in other executive management roles including Director of Major Projects and General Manager Road System Management. During this period he gained experience in the management of bridge design, construction as well as geotechnical engineering.
He played a leading role with Austroads as Program Manager for the Road System Management Program and the Technology Program and was a Director of ARRB Transport Research for 5 years until taking up his current appointment. In 2004 he was received the Australian Road Forum's John Shaw Award for his contributions to the road transport industry.
Nigel Priestley
Nigel Priestley is Emeritus Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of California at San Diego and co-director of the Rose School in Pavia, Italy. His research is focused on the seismic design of concrete and masonry structures and on seismic design philosophy. He has published more than 650 books, technical papers and reports, mainly related to seismic design and has received more than 30 international awards for his research.
At present he is actively developing and promoting displacement-based seismic design methods for structures including bridges.
He is a fellow of ACI, IPENZ, NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering, NZ Concrete Society, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
He has received Honorary Doctorates from:
Swiss Federal Institute (ETH) Zurich, 2004
National University of Argentina, Cujo, Mendoza, 2003
Diana Cobos Roger
Diana Cobos Roger completed her civil engineering degree from the Politecnical University of Madrid in 2004 and has spent the past 4 years working on projects involving cable stay bridges, post-tensioning, slip forming and tunnelling. She is currently a Project Manager for BBR PTE Spain and she has recently completed work on the Santiago Calatrava designed Serrería Bridge in Valencia – a landmark project in the City of Arts and Sciences to compliment the other famous Calatrava structures already established in the south of Valencia.
BBR PTE specialises in post-tensioning, bridging and stay cable technology and Diana has predominantly been involved in site management, fabrication, installation and tensioning of cable stay bridge structures – including Serrería Bridge in Valencia, Rio Seco Bridge, and the new bridge over Guadalquivir River in Palma del Río. Her current projects of interest include Basarab Overpass in Bucharest (a 1900m long viaduct) including stay cable span, launched span and arch bridge and the Vidin-Calafat Bridge over the Danube River in Bulgaria.