Ground Improvement II

Dr. Akanksha Tyagi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee since July 2019. She obtained B.Tech. in Civil Engineering from G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology in the year 2011 and was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Gold Medal. She has done M.Tech. in Geotechnical specialization from IIT Bombay in the year 2011-13. She earned her Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore in 2018, and received the NUS Research Scholarship from prestigious National Research Foundation (NRF) Singapore and Ministry of Education (MOE) Singapore. 

Her research interests include tunnelling and excavations in soft soils, in-situ ground improvement techniques (jet grouting and deep soil mixing), numerical modelling of rainfall-induced slope instabilities, random finite element analysis, and geotechnical centrifuge modelling.

She received the Bright Spark Lecture Award from International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) at the Indian Geotechnical Conference (IGC) 2024. She is the recipient of ‘IEI Young Engineers Award 2024' in Civil Engineering discipline from The Institution of Engineers (India). Dr. Tyagi is an Associate Member of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and also serves as an official member of DFI Soil Mixing Committee, Deep Foundations Institute. She is an Associate Member of The Institution of Engineers. She is also a Life member of Indian Geotechnical Society and a nominated member of TC-307: sustainability in geotechnical engineering, ISSMGE for the term 2022-2025. She serves as regular member at the Hill Roads & Tunnels Committee (H-10), Indian Roads Congress for the tenure 2025-2027. She is the individual life member of Tunnelling Association of India.

Dr. Tyagi’s research works are published in reputed peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings. She is featured in the book “Daughters of Indian Soil” for being among 75 Influential Indian Women in Geotechnical Engineering, published by Indian Geotechnical Society in 2023.

Dr. Anindya Pain is a Principal Scientist in the Geotechnical Engineering and Geohazards Group at CSIR-Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee. He pursued his M.Tech. and Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from AcSIR Ghaziabad in 2012 and 2017, respectively. He earned his BTech in Civil Engineering from Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, West Bengal. He was a visiting scholar at Purdue University, USA, in September-October 2022. His primary research interests include Earthquake Resistant Design of Geotechnical Structures, Probabilistic Analysis of Geotechnical Structures, Site Specific Ground Response Analysis, Rock Mechanics, Slope Stability Analysis, and Application of Machine Learning for Pattern Recognition Problems. He has supervised 4 M.Tech. and 1 Ph.D. student, with 9 more Ph.D. students currently under his supervision. He has received sponsored research projects from R&D institutes and industries, including DRDO, AAI, L&T, NCC, and IRCON. Dr. Pain was inducted into the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) as a Young Associate in the ES I Civil Engineering section in 2024. He is the recipient of the Institute of Engineers (India) Young Engineers Award in the Civil Engineering category for the year 2022-2023. He received the Innovative Student Project Award (Doctoral Level) 2017, given by INAE, for his PhD thesis. He also got the IACMAG Excellent Paper Award 2017 by the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics, Arizona, USA. He had been nominated to represent the Indian Geotechnical Society (IGS) as Corresponding Member of the International Technical Committee TC-207 on “Soil-Structure Interaction and Retaining Walls” of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) for the term 2018-2021. He is currently the honorary secretary of the Indian Geotechnical Society Roorkee chapter. He has published 55 journal papers. He is an active reviewer of 45 SCI-indexed National and International journals. He is an editorial board member of the Scientific Reports and the Indian Geotechnical Journal, published by Nature and Springer, respectively.

 Dr. Priti Maheshwari is currently a Professor in Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Roorkee. Her professional journey begun in 2005 after completing her PhD from IIT Kanpur in 2004. She earned her BE in 1999 from REC Durgapur (now NIT) and ME in 2001 from MNREC Allahabad (now MNNIT) with academic excellence securing first rank in the batch both during her BE and ME. 

She works extensively in the areas of ground improvement, soil-structure interaction, ground engineering: modeling and analysis, concrete gravity dams, machine foundations under blast loadings, risk analysis, and rock mechanics and rock engineering. She has 60+ research publications in National and International refereed journals and 25+ in National and International conferences including chapters in conference proceedings to her credit. She also contributed a chapter titled “Foundation-Soil Interaction” to the book Geotechnical Engineering Handbook.

Her teaching skills have been widely recognized, evidenced by the popularity of her NPTEL courses on Rock Engineering and Underground Space Technology. She is an editorial board member of International Journal of Geotechnical Engineering and Indian Geotechnical Journal. She has significantly contributed to various field problems through numerous consultancy projects. She is also involved in BIS committees to develop guidelines for using micropiles for landslide mitigation and slope stabilization.

She has received IGS-Z Tech Biennial Award for years 2008-09, IGS-Shri B. N. Gupta Biennial prize for years 2015-16, IGS-HEICO Biennial Prize (2019), by Indian Geotechnical Society. She has been nominated to represent Indian Geotechnical Society on the International Technical Committee TC-304 on "Engineering Practice of Risk Assessment and Management" of ISSMGE. She has also served as a National Executive Committee member of Indian Geotechnical Society, India. She has played an active role in organizing numerous conferences in various capacities.

Notably, she is the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from IIT Kanpur and the first woman faculty member of Geotechnical Engineering in an IIT.