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A lab is nothing without the people – and here are the smart real people associated with the smart digital lab.
Team
Dr. Yang Zou
Senior Lecturer, Research Lead
Yang is a Lecturer with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland. Yang works with applying advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), e.g. Building Information Modelling (BIM), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IoT), sensing and visualisation, throughout the lifecycle of complex building and large-scale infrastructure systems.
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Dr. Roy C. Davies
Senior Technician
Roy is a long time expert in Mixed Reality and Calm Technology. Trained as a Computer Scientist with aspirations to become a cognitive scientist and behavioral psychologist, the area of Virtual reality was the perfect marriage of the technical and human fields. Roy is a contemplative engineer with both academic and business competence who likes to solve technical and business problems and help other people solve their problems.
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Dr. Alice Chang-Richards
Senior Lecturer
Alice is a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland. Her main research interests include disaster risk reduction, climate change adaption, construction technology, construction automation, smart cities and smart housing.
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Dr. Vicente Gonzalez (SDL Alumni)
Associate Professor, Research Lead and Founder
Vicente is now a Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Digital Lean Construction, Faculty of Engineering – Civil and Environmental Engineering Dept at Alberta University, Canada. He was a staff member within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland since 2010, and founded the SDL. He actively conducts research in construction management, civil engineering and computing applications.
Further information
Dr Vicente Gonzalez – The University of Auckland | University of Alberta
Dr. Robert Amor
Professor
Robert has spent over 30 years working on the application of computer science research in the architecture, engineering, and construction domains. Prior to his return to NZ in 2000 he spent 5 years in the UK developing Construction IT initiatives at the Building Research Establishment. This included the development of National and European-wide Internet-based information gateways. In NZ he has been part of the national BIM Acceleration Committee, he coordinates the CIB W78 working group on IT in Construction, and is Editor-in-Chief of the IT in Construction international journal.
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Dr. Carol Anne Mutch
Professor
Carol Mutch is a professor of Critical Studies in Education in the Faculty of Education and Social Work. She is also the Education Commissioner for UNESCO New Zealand. Dr Mutch came to The University of Auckland following many years as a primary teacher, teacher educator and policy advisor. During her career, Dr Mutch has lived and worked overseas as a teacher in Canada and the UK, a visiting professor in Japan (Nagoya & Waseda) and the UK (LSE), and taught at the National University of Samoa. Her teaching and research interests are in research methods, education policy, curriculum development and social education.
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Dr. James Lim (SDL Almuni)
Associate Professor
James’ research includes structural engineering applications to Building Information Modelling (BIM). A recent paper entitled “Finite element investigation of cold-formed steel portal frames in fire” describes how a BIM model was moved to ABAQUS and subsequently used to investigate the behaviour of portal frames in fire; this paper won the Palmer Prize. (Video of the portal frame burnt to collapse.) Previously James has studied the topics of cold formed steel portal frames and hot rolled steel, composite construction and fire.
Further information
Dr James Lim – The University of Auckland | University of Waikato
Dr. Cameron Graham Walker
Associate Professor
I came to the Department of Engineering Science in 1998, after completing my PhD in Mathematics. I was promoted to Associate Professor in 2015. My research interests are Network Optimization, Simulation and Statistical Modeling. I am a member of ORUA (Operations Research union Analytics), inside the Operations Research Group at The University of Auckland.
My area of research is computational analytics. I specialise in building models that make use of system measurements to understand the dynamics of those systems, and in many cases incorporate optimisation techniques to help decision makers improve the system performance.
Further information
Associate Professor Cameron Walker – The University of Auckland
Dr. Subeh Chowdhury
Senior Lecturer
Subeh is a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland. After completing her PhD, she has worked in industry on road safety, speed analysis and crash reduction studies as a consultant for Beca and Opus. Subeh works with policy making of Integrated Public Transport systems, and has a strong interest in equity with a focus on women’s barriers to the use of public transport, in particular their perception of safety. Further, she conducts research on the use of public transport by people with disabilities and is passionate about sustainable transport.
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Dr. Jiamou Lou
Senior Lecturer
My research interests lie in the intersection between theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Recently my research mainly focuses on the interdisciplinary area of computational social science and multi-agent systems.
My main research activities involve exploring social networks; topics of interests include interpersonal ties, influence, communities structures, information diffusion and social cohesion. I am also interested in pure and applied aspects of logic, algorithmic model theory, computational complexity and automata theory.
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Dr. Michael Justin O’Sullivan
Senior Lecturer
My main research interests are the application of Operations Research to complex systems, in particular the formulation of optimisation and simulation models and the development of advanced techniques for solving these models. Currently I am focusing on:
- improving health delivery services;
- modelling to inform government policy;
- building intelligent (computing and storage) clouds;
- conceptual modelling for simulation;
- developing innovative optimisation software; and
- simulating construction projects.
Further information
Dr. Gary Raftery
Senior Lecturer
Gary is a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland. He has two decades of research experience and has held positions at prestigious universities in Europe and North America. He has strong interests in advancing developments of durable and sustainable materials for a circular economy while delivering enhanced structural performance of elements and systems.
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Dr. Tom Shand
Senior Lecturer
Tom is a Coastal Engineer with 15 years professional and academic experience. Areas of interest include coastal process and hazards, numerical and physical modelling of coastal, offshore and estuarine processes; and the design of coastal structures and beach nourishment schemes.
Tom is involved in a range of research and consulting projects throughout New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific including developing guidelines for coastal protection works in the Pacific and is a co-author on the MfE Climate Change and Coastal Hazard update document. Tom began a position at the University of Auckland in January 2019 as Senior Lecturer in Coastal Engineering and is also a Technical Director of Coastal Engineering at Tonkin + Taylor Ltd improving health delivery services;
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Dr. Enrique del Rey Castillo
Lecturer
Enrique obtained a Master of Engineering on structural engineering at the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain, his home town. He then joined the Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions (SAHC) master programme to learn more about advanced structural design, seismic actions and the behaviour of existing heritage buildings. This master is co-jointly taught at two universities in Europe, which brought him to live in Czech Republic and Portugal. His experience with the research project within the master programme motivated him to enrol at the University of Auckland to complete a PhD in seismic strengthening of concrete structures with Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP).
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Graduate Students
Isra Abdulhalim (2019 – present)
Exploring the use of Immersive Virtual Reality, Serious Games and Social Robots to improve Post-earthquake Evacuation Preparedness in Deaf Children. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
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Sajjad Hassanpour (2020 – present)
Integrating Agent-Based Modelling, BIM, and Earthquake Response to Design Buildings. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand. PhD Scholarship supported with funds from National Science Challenge – Science for Technological Innovation (SfTI) Research Grant.
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Salik Khan
Investigating the challenges within a BIM-based design-construction workflow for modular prefabricated construction augmented with robots. Focus on optimising mass customisation by integrating design participation and robot-oriented design, followed by streamlining data-exchange with robotic construction platforms. Benefits in terms of a faster, cheaper, better, more sustainable, and an inclusive construction solution for the future.
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Canlong Liu (2019 – present)
Social Virtual Reality to investigate Construction Organisation Social Dynamics when Implementing Lean-Based Planning and Control Systems. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
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Abhinaw Sai Erri Pradeep
Investigating the application of Blockchain Technology to improve information management in construction project management. Design, development and evaluation of a decentralised application prototype that leverages blockchain technology to enhance design liability control at the elemental level of BIM models, and improves the security of information exchange transaction records on construction projects.
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Weifang Shi (2019 – present)
Immersive Virtual Reality Serious Games for Hazards Prevention through Design Education. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
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Bitian Wang (2020 – present)
Exploring Behavioural Shift in Sustainable Construction Using Immersive Virtual Reality and Serious Games. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
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Feng Wang
Exploring a solution to automate the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to collect necessary images for bridge visual inspection. The main research objective is to propose reliable image collection strategies required for defects detection and to propose a method for UAV flight mission planning (flight route planning, obstacle avoidance) and UAV flight mission execution status monitoring. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
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Zhong Wang
Exploring Immersive Virtual Reality and 3D modelling in remote infrastructure inspection and BIM data visualisation. Master of Engineering. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
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Amila Wickramasekara (2019 – present)
Serious Games to Setup Controlled Experiments in CEM Research. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand. Ministry of Higher Education Sri Lanka – PhD Scholarship.
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Asem Zabin (2019 – present)
Development of an AI-Based Conversational Framework for BIM-Enabled Operations & Maintenance. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
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M Zeyu (2020 – present)
Digital Twinning in Construction: Integration of IoT, BIM and Mixed-Reality to Support Lean-Based Production Planning and Control. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand. Chinese Scholarship Council.
Further information
(coming soon)
Cheng Zhang
Rapid post-earthquake building condition assessment by combining UAV and BIM. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
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Graduated
Zhenan, F. (2020). Towards a Customizable Immersive Virtual Reality Serious Game for Indoor Earthquake Emergency Training. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Abdelmegid, M. A. (2020). A Conceptual Modelling Framework for Construction Simulation. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Gao, E. (2020). Predicting Construction Workers’ Unsafe-behaving Intentions Using Machine Learning Algorithms and a Basic Taxonomy of Personality. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Carter-Green, A. (2019). Assessing Tsunami Evacuation Preparedness in New Zealand. ME Thesis. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Antunes, R. (2017). Dynamics of Project-Driven Systems: A Production Model for Repetitive Processes in Construction. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Golzarpoor, H. (2017). A Discrete-Event Simulation-Based Approach to Manage Production and Environmental in Construction. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Belayutham, S. (2016). The Integration of Production and Environmental Approaches in Managing Construction Site Water Pollution Sheila Belayutham. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Guo, H. (2016). A Study of System Dynamics Modelling in Construction Health and Safety. PhD Dissertation. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Auckland, New Zealand (Co-Supervisor). Main Supervisor: Dr Kenneth Yiu.