Judges

Werner Bilfinger
Brazil
Werner Bilfinger is a civil engineer graduated from the University of São Paulo, where he also got his Master and PhD degrees.
He works with design and consultancy since graduation mainly in infrastructure projects in Brazil, the Americas, Europe and Africa.
He is the Brazilian representative in Working Group 19 - Conventional Tunnelling - of the ITA, and TC 207 - Soil-Structure Interaction - of the ISSMGE.

Nick Chittenden
United Arab Emirates
MSc, MBA, BEng
Nick is a mining engineer with 30 years’ experience in the global underground construction industry. He qualified as a Mining Engineer from Cardiff University before taking an MBA with the Open University and then an MSc in Tunnelling at the Polytechnico Torino.
He is a specialist in the rock support technologies of sprayed concrete, injection and waterproofing.
He is the current chair of the International Tunnelling Association’s (ITA) ITATech committee and an EFNARC Sprayed Concrete Nozzleman Trainer and Assessor.
For the past 12 years Nick has been employed by Master Builders Construction Chemicals Group in Dubai as Regional Manager for Underground Construction, Middle East and Africa.

Zhu Hehua
China
Prof. Hehua Zhu is now the Distinguished Professor in Geotechnical Engineering of Tongji University, China.
He is the chair of Joint Technical Committee 2 under FedIGS (2017-present) and vice president of Committee of Tunnel and Underground Engineering of CCES.
He created an International Journal “Underground Space”.
His research interests are in Rock Failure Mechanics and Numerical Methods in Geo-engineering, Infrastructure Smart Service System(iS3) Construction, Fire Disaster Prevention and Reduction for Underground Space.
He was awarded with Humboldt Research Prize in 2015 and the T.H.H. medal at ICCES’13 in 2013.