27 July 2011 – The Mercer Lecture selection committee, chaired by Professor Fumio Tatsuoka, has announced that Dr.-Ing. Michael Heibaum has been appointed as the next lecturer for the 2012 – 2013 Mercer Lecture Series.
He will be delivering his presentation on the subject of ‘Geosynthetics for Waterways and Flood Protection Structures – Controlling the Interaction of Water and Soil’.
The prestigious Mercer Lecture Series was launched in 1992 as a biennial lecture, with the aim of promoting the co-operation of information exchange between the geotechnical engineering profession and the geosynthetics industry. This gives eminent practitioners the opportunity to undertake a lecture tour on the subject of Geosynthetics in Geotechnical Engineering.
They are held in honour of the late Dr Brian Mercer, the inventor of geogrids and a strong advocate for innovation, research and development. Dr. Heibaum has many years of experience with the evaluation and application of geosynthetics in hydraulic engineering and currently heads up the Geotechnical Engineering Department of the Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute in Germany.
With increasing interest in flood control and waterway engineering associated with climate change, the Mercer Lecture committee selected ‘Waterways and Flood Control’ as the theme for the 2012- 2013 series.
The current Mercer Lecture series came to a close this month, with the last lecture of a 3-part series being held at the 15th African Regional Conference in Maputo, Mozambique. It was delivered by Professor Junichi Koseki from the University of Tokyo on the subject of ‘Use of geosynthetics to improve seismic performance of earth structures’.
Professor Koseki had earlier in the year visited Texas to deliver the Mercer Lecture to the Geo-Frontiers Conference. He travelled the day after the tragic Japanese earthquake on 11th March and delivered his lecture to a standing ovation.
The legacy of the past and current Mercer Lecture lecturers is available on a dedicated website as a resource for the industry as a whole. Here, visitors to the site can learn more about the lecturers and download their papers. To access this information, visit www.mercerlecture.com.
The Mercer Lecture Series is sponsored by Tensar International Ltd, and endorsed by the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) and International Geosynthetics Society (IGS).
If you would like any additional information on the Mercer Lecture Series, contact: Michelle Lee, Marketing Executive, Tensar International Ltd, +44 (0)1254 266 842, mlee@tensar.co.uk.
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