Dr. Sumanta Haldar is currently an associate professor at IIT Bhubaneswar. He has over 15 years of research experience in the field of offshore geotechnics, soil-structure interaction and dynamics of soils and foundations. Dr. Haldar is working on offshore geotechnics, foundations for renewable energy devices and soil-structure interaction problem. During his doctoral research at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, he worked on static and dynamic soil structure interaction and risk-reliability based design of pile foundation. His current research aims at developing theoretical models of various geotechnical structures with a goal of producing more rational design solutions and considering reliability concepts. The focus of his research is on the application of the fundamental principles of mechanics and mathematics in the experimental and computational aspects of geotechnical engineering. He has more than 50 peer reviewed international and national journal and conference publications and book chapters. Dr. Shantanu Patra is currently an Assistant Professor at IIT Bhubaneswar. He pursued his Ph.D. from IIT Delhi on experimental and numerical analysis of reinforced soil behavior under the oblique pullout force. He did his postdoctoral research which was specifically on physical and numerical modeling of the foundation for offshore wave energy devices at the University of Dundee, United Kingdom. During this period, Dr. Patra gained experience in geotechnical centrifuge modeling and developed a scalable actuator control system for Dundee centrifuge. Currently, Dr. Patra is working on application of the screw pile foundation for offshore and onshore renewable energy devices, railway geotechnics, reinforced soil technology, and is guiding Ph.D. scholars. Dr. Patra has more than 30 peer-reviewed international and national journal and conference publications and book chapters. Mr. R. K. Ghanekar is currently heading the Geotechnical section of IEOT, ONGC. He obtained his Master’s degree in structural engineering from University of Roorkee, India in 1983 and has since been working in India’s premier oil company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC). He has over 25 years of experience in the field of offshore geotechnics and offshore structural engineering - including shallow and deepwater offshore soil investigations; design of offshore structures and foundations, and installation engineering. Over the years, he has played a key-role in developing the technical capabilities of Institute of Engineering and Ocean Technology (IEOT), ONGC in the field of offshore geotechnics. He has also been active in promoting offshore geotechnics within India. He has more than 35 technical publications in national and international forums.
