Dr. Kasinathan Muthukkumaran is currently Professor in Civil Engineering at National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. He obtained Ph.D. in Soil-Structure Interaction and Marine Geotechnical Engineering from Indian Institute Technology Madras. He has published more than 150 papers in international and national journals and conferences. He has completed 5 R & D (including ISRO - Chandrayaan- 2 Mission project) & 70 major consultancy projects in Geotechnical Engineering and published two patent including “Moon Soil” (A Method for Manufacture of Highland Lunar Soil Simulant). He has guided 10 PhD scholars and 6 more are in progress, 5 MS (by research) and more than 40 M.Tech. students in Geotechnical and allied research areas. He is the Founder Chairman of Indian Geotechnical Society (IGS-Trichy) Trichy Chapter. He is a member of Technical Committee (TC-301 on "Preservation of Historic Sites") of International Society for Soil Mechanicsand Geotechnical Engineering. Prof. Muthukkumaran area of research is in geotechnical engineering, which includes pile foundation, soil-structure interaction, marine geotechnics & foundations, field instrumentation, geotechnical physical modeling, ground improvement and forensic geotechnical engineering. He has received DST Young Scientist Award, IGS- Smt. Indra Joshi Biennial Award and Keynote Paper Award – GEOMATE Conference 2015 at Osaka, Japan. He is an Associate Editor of Australian journal of Civil Engineering and serving editorial board member of several journals. Prof. Muthukkumaran has significant administrative contribution as Estate Officer, Associate Dean (Planning and Development), Member of Buildings and Works Committee and Member of Board of Governors (BoG) of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli and Member of Buildings and Works Committee, IIM Trichy. He has received NIT Trichy Achiever Awards for research publications, research projects, maximum citation and consultancy projects. Dr. Deendayal Rathod has obtained his B.Tech. (Civil Engineering) from JNTU College of Engineering (University Campus), Hyderabad, and M.E. and Ph.D. both from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. He is currently working as professor at National Institute of Technology (NIT) Trichy since 2006. He has published more than 15 papers in the referred international journals and 12 papers in the reputed national/international conferences. He has more than 15 years of teaching, research and consultancy experience at NIT Trichy, and two months of abroad working experience at the University of Warwick (U.K.) as Visiting Fellow. Dr. Rathod has involved in all the major consultancy work carried out by the Department of Civil Engineering, NIT Trichy, for various organizations like Tamil Nadu Housing Board, Southern Railway, NLC-Neyveli, TNEB, PWD Trichy, etc. Dr. Sujatha E. Ramanicurrently works as Professor in the School of Civil Engineering, SASTRA Deemed University, India. She holds a Master’s degree in soil mechanics and foundation engineering and a Ph.D. in slope stability. Her research interests include sustainable ground improvement, landslide analysis and GIS applications, landfill liner applications, biopolymer and nano-additive characterization and applications. She previously served as Assistant Engineer in Tamil Nadu Public Works Department and has an academic career spanning 21 years. Also, she is the member secretary of the Indian Geotechnical Society, Thanjavur chapter. She published over 50 technical articles in many peer-reviewed national and international journals. She has also given over 30 conference presentations and has 12 peer-reviewed book chapters to her credit. She successfully investigated two extra-mural and one intra-mural funded project. At present, she is investigating a project funded by TNSCST on biopolymer-based brick development for economical housing. She is an active reviewer for many peer-reviewed journals. Dr. M. Muthukumar is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering Division in the School of Civil Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, India. He has over 20 years of professional experience in the field of geotechnical engineering. His primary areas of research include ground improvement techniques, helical piles, granular pile anchors, clay liners and soil reinforcement. He is also member in various professional societies. Prof. Muthukumar has published several research articles in peer-reviewed international journals and reputed conferences. He is also a recipient of Tamil Nadu young scientist fellowship award in 2017. He is also a reviewer for various journals of national and international repute in geotechnical engineering.
