Ravindra Kumar Dhir OBE is an honorary professor of concrete engineering, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and emeritus professor of concrete technology, University of Dundee, United Kingdom, where he held the position of founding director of the Concrete Technology Unit (1988-2008) and developed it into an internationally acknowledged Centre of Excellence. His approach to research is visionary and creative, and by working closely with industry, he ensured a meaningful dissemination of his research into practice. He won many awards and honours,including the Order of the British Empire for services to concrete technology from the Queen (1998), Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for innovative partnership withindustry (1989 and 1990 consecutively) and honorary fellowships from the Institute of Concrete Technology, United Kingdom; Indian Concrete Institute. He served on numerous technical committees, including as president of the Concrete Society (2009-2010) and on the editorial board of the Magazine of Concrete Research. Jorge de Brito is a full professor of civil engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Georesources, Instituto Superior Técnico, University ofLisbon. His main research topic is sustainable construction, particularly on the use of recycled aggregates in concrete and mortars. He has participated in 20 competitively financed research projects (four as the principal investigator) and supervised 20 PhD and 150 MSc theses. He is the author of 3 previous books, 20 book chapters, 250 journal and 450 conference papers. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Building Engineering, an associate editor of the European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering, a member of the editorial boards of 15 other international journals and a member of the CIB, FIB, RILEM, IABMAS and IABSE organisations. Dr Gurmel S. Ghataora, Senior lecturer, University of Birmingham, UK. Over 40 years’ experience in the geotechnical engineering industry and academia. He has been at the University for over 25 years, where in addition to his teaching, he is the Head of Postgraduate Admissions for all taught programmes in Civil Engineering. He has supervised over 50 research students and authored over 180 articles. His interests include geotechnics of earth roads and railways, and sustainable construction materials. Amongst his many inventions are zero-compaction trench backfill made from as-dug materials, fibre reinforcement of clayey soils, improving the stiffness of railway tracks without removing the track, a novel railway drainage system and remediating acidity in colliery spoil using waste materials. Current studies include the durability of concrete made with recycled concrete aggregate and municipal incinerated bottom ash. He is a member of the Institute of the IOM3 and sits on two TRB committees. Chao Qun Lye is a graduate from the National University of Singapore and previously an assistant concrete quality control manager, for ready-mix concrete, with the G&W Group in Singapore. He is currently a PhD doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, working in the area of sustainable construction materials. He holds a strong interest in sustainability and innovation, applying it to the use of cement additions such as fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag and the use of recycled and secondary materials in concrete, geotechnics and road pavements.
