One hour with NGI: Inside NGI and Assessing Risk - What can it tell us by Dr Lars Andresen and Dr Suzanne Lacasse (Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, NGI)

Seminar overview:

This seminar is divided into two parts: (1) ‘Inside NGI’ by Dr Lars Andresen and (2) ‘Assessing Risk – what can it tell us’ by Professor Dr Suzanne Lacasse.

(1) NGI was established in 1953 and is today a leading international centre for research, technology development and expert consulting within geotechnical engineering. With about 260 employees working from Oslo, Trondheim, Houston and Perth it is also one of the larger geotechnical specialist companies. Working at NGI means working in a truly international environment with colleagues from more than 35 different countries. NGI receives yearly more than 1000 job applications from all around the world. Why is NGI attractive for the geotechnical engineer and how is it to work at NGI? In this talk Dr Andresen will share some of the secrets of NGI and present NGI employees in project work, research work and in social settings.

(2) More and more, society requires to know the risk to which people, property and the environment are exposed. The geotechnical engineer/engineering geologist should increasingly aim at reducing exposure to threats, reducing risk and protecting people. Hazard, risk and reliability assessments can assist in design and decision-making in civil engineering. The lecture presents "real life" case studies where hazard, vulnerability and risk assessments have benefited society. In the examples, specific engineering questions had to be answered, and risk and reliability applications provided insight for informed decision-making. The examples come from slope stability assessment, dam design and offshore geotechnical engineering, where the geotechnical engineer’s role is to take an active part in the evaluation of hazard, vulnerability and risk.

Biography:

Dr Lars Andresen

Dr Andresen has expertise within numerical and constitutive modelling for a broad range of geomechanical problems.  He has 20 years of experience working as a consultant and researcher at NGI. Projects have included design of anchors and foundations for offshore structures, design of support systems for deep excavations in soft soil, analysis of progressive failure and localisation of sensitive clay, and analysis of tailing dams. Since 2007 he has been in the management group of NGI and since January 1st 2012 NGI’s Managing Director.

Professor Dr Suzanne Lacasse

Dr Lacasse graduated from the University of Ottawa, Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She taught at MIT and headed the soil mechanics laboratory for several years before moving to NGI where she became NGI Managing Director in 1991. Her expertise include geotechnical engineering and hazard and risk assessment and management. Since 2014, she has been an Honorary Professor at Zhejiang University in China. Dr Lacasse has published over 300 papers to scientific journals and conferences. She is the first woman awarded the Rankine Lecture (2015) and gave the Terzaghi Oration (2013) and the Terzaghi Lecture (2001).

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