Dr Cholachat is a Professor at the Transport Research Centre, School of Civil, and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineeering and Information Sciences, University of Technology Sydney. He received his B.Eng (1st Class Honours) from the Khonkaen University, Thailand in 2000 with a Masters (M Eng) from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand in 2002. He obtained his PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Wollongong in 2006. He received the Australian Geomechanics Society Thesis Award in 2006. He has published over 140 articles in international journals and conferences.

Currently a Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering at UTS, Prof Indraratna’s pioneering contributions to geotechnical and railway engineering have been acknowledged through numerous national and international accolades, including the 1st Ralph Proctor Lecture and the 4th Louis Menard Lecture of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), and the pinnacle award for outstanding contributions to railways from the combined Engineers Australia and Railway Technical Society of Australia (RTSA), which he received at the NSW Parliament House in 2015. He completed his undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering and a MSc degree in Soil Mechanics at the Imperial College, London, and his PhD (Geotechnical Engineering) at the University of Alberta, Canada. He has published over 850 papers, including 12 books and over 450 journal papers, and has delivered over 70 invited keynote papers on all continents. Buddhima is a Fellow of the prestigious Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE), as well as a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia (FIEAust), the American Society of Civil Engineers (FASCE), and the Geological Society of UK (FGS).

Joseph Arivalagan obtained his Bachelor’s Degree with First Class Honours at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka. He is pursuing his doctoral research at the Transport Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney under the support of ARC Industry Transformation Training Centre for Advanced Rail Track Technologies (ARC ITTC-Rail) and Global Synthetics. He is being supervised by Distinguished Prof Buddhima Indraratna and Prof Cholachat Rujikiatkamjorn.