Prof. Mahdi Karkush is President of Iraqi Scientific Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering and Professor of Civil Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering at University of Baghdad, Iraq. He received his Ph.D. in Civil Geotechnical Engineering from University of Baghdad, Iraq, in 2008. He pursued his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from University of Babylon, Iraq, in 1995 and M.Sc. in Civil Structural Engineering from University of Babylon, Iraq, in 1998. He has authored over 80 technical publications including 50 peer-reviewed journal papers. He has supervised over 28 of Ph.D. and M.Sc. students. He is Member of the editorial board of several world scientific journals. His outstanding research works in the fields of geoenvironmental engineering and sustainability in geotechnical engineering, foundation engineering, and geomechanics. He is Fellow of the Iraqi Engineers Association (IEA), Iraq, International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), UK, Fulbright scholar, USA, DAAD scholar, Germany, and Swinburne Scholar, Australia.
Prof. Deepankar Choudhury is Prof. T. Kant Chair Professor and Head of Civil Engineering Department at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India. He received his Ph.D. Civil Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering from IISc Bangalore, India, in 2002 and received Prof. G. A. Leonard's Best PhD Thesis Award from IGS. He is Humboldt Fellow of Germany, JSPS Fellow of Japan, and TWAS-VS Fellow of Italy. He has authored over 300 technical publications including 160 peer-reviewed journal papers. He has supervised over 25 Ph.D. students. He is Associate Editor of ASCE-International Journal of Geomechanics and served as Editorial Board Member of several world class journals like Soils and Foundations (Elsevier), Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Geotechnical and Geological Engineering (Springer), Geomechanics and Engineering (Techno-Press), etc. He is Fellow of the ASCE, USA (F.ASCE), Fellow of The National Academy of Sciences, India (FNASc), Fellow of Institution of Engineers, India (FIE), Indian Geotechnical Society (FIGS), and Indian Society of Earthquake Technology (FISET). His outstanding research works in the domain of geotechnical earthquake engineering, foundation engineering, and computational geomechanics are highly cited and implemented in various field problems through mega projects. His course lectures through NPTEL are highly popular, and he is Recipient of Excellence in Teaching Award in addition to several research awards. He is Secretary of TC-207 and former Secretary of TC-212 of ISSMGE.