Prof. Saavedra Flores joined the Department of Civil Engineering at Santiago University in 2005. He earned his PhD in Civil Engineering in 2011 from Swansea University in the UK, where he also held the position of post-doctoral research officer from 2011 to 2013. In Chile and in the UK, he worked as a structural engineer in relevant engineering projects. He has been a member of the editorial board of Applied Mathematical Modelling since 2016, and also guest editor in Materials Today Communications and Buildings. He has published one book and more than one hundred scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. His main research interests are multiscale computational mechanics with emphasis on the modelling of timber materials and structures. In 2016, he was awarded a FONDEQUIP project granted by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development to implement the largest seismic shaking table in South America.
Between 2015 and 2014, Prof. Saavedra Flores was deputy director and between 2019-2023 Head of the Civil Engineering Department at Santiago University. Professor Rodrigo Astroza is an associate professor and vice-dean for Faculty Affairs in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the Universidad de los Andes in Chile. He received his Civil Engineering and Master of Science in Earthquake Engineering degrees from the University of Chile and a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of California, San Diego. He has published three books, 17 book chapters, more than 50 research articles in peer-reviewed indexed journals, and more than 100 papers in international conferences. He has led several research and technology transfer projects related to structural health monitoring, structural engineering, and seismic response of civil structures funded by the Chilean National Agency for Research and Development.
His research interests include structural health monitoring, theoretical and experimental dynamics of structures, earthquake engineering, and seismic response of structures and non-structural components. Dr. Raj Das leads the 'Simulation and Modelling' group in the Aerospace Engineering and Aviation discipline of the School of Engineering at RMIT University in Australia, where he is also an honorary academic. He is also a principal investigator at the Sir Lawrence Wackett Aerospace Research Centre of RMIT University and an adjunct academic at the University of Quebec, Canada. His current research interests include impact response and failure of composite materials, numerical modeling using mesh-less methods, multi-scale modeling, nano-machining, dynamic fracture, and damage tolerance-based structural optimization. He received his Ph.D. in failure analysis and structural optimization from Monash University in Australia, where he developed a range of damage tolerance-based optimization tools that have been adopted by Australian aerospace industries for optimal designs for fracture strength and fatigue life.