EVENT DETAIL

Steve Chai, Rocscience, biography coming soon
 

Derrick Dasenbrock, P.E., BC.GE, F.ASCE, Minnesota DOT

Derrick Dasenbrock is the Minnesota Department of Transportations’ geotechnical engineering manager, rejoining MnDOT in February, after 5 years with the Federal Highway Administration’s Resource Center. Derrick’s background is in geotechnical site investigation, lab testing, and more recently, geotechnical data communication, visualization, exchange, and interoperability, partnering with groups including TRB, DFI, and the ASCE Geo-Institute. He currently serves as the Chair of TRB’s Committee on Geotechnical Instrumentation and Modeling, and Co-chair of the GI’s Innovation Committee.

Scott Deaton, Dataforensics

Scott Deaton is President and Founder of Dataforensics, a software company that specializes in helping geo-engineers use technology to improve and streamline their data collection, data management, reporting, analysis and visualization processes. Dataforensics software has been utilizing geotechnical data interchange standards since 2004 and he has been an active member of the DIGGS Technical Committee since 2008. Under his guidance, Dataforensics has been responsible for most of the major implementations of OpenGround Cloud in North America for organizations like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Naval Facilities Command, Airforce Facilities Command, Louisiana DOT, Ohio DOT, New Mexico DOT, WSP/Golder, Wood, ECS, Haley & Aldrich, S&ME, Braun Intertec and many more. He has guided Dataforensics to become the first software vendor that fully supports the import and export of DIGGS data in their software and has pioneered the usage of DIGGS within the OpenGround Cloud environment.

Seda Gokyer Erbis, Ph.D., P.E., Geocomp

Seda Gokyer Erbis is a Senior Project Manager at Geocomp with 15 years of experience in geotechnical and earthquake engineering. Her expertise includes advanced field and laboratory methods, soil behavior and characterization, and seismic assessments of geostructures. Seda has led innovative research and consulting projects, addressing complex challenges in soil mechanics and seismic risk.

Frederick Hedberg, J.D., Robinson+Cole

Frederick E. Hedberg is a partner with the law firm of Robinson & Cole LLP and a member of the firm’s Construction Law Group. He has more than 25 years of experience handling complex construction and commercial litigation and transactional matters for his clients. In addition to his legal experience, prior to becoming an attorney, Fred practiced as a licensed civil and structural engineer for over 10 years, thereby gaining an in-depth knowledge and understanding of all phases of a construction project. Fred’s clients include public, institutional and private owners, developers, contractors, design professionals, sureties, financial institutions and insurance companies. Fred represents clients in federal and state courts and before arbitration panels and administrative governmental tribunals on all types of project-related claims and disputes.

Shengmin Luo, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE, Western New England University

Shengmin Luo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Western New England University, specializing in Geotechnical Engineering. His research interests include unsaturated soil mechanics, surface science in earthen materials, data science application in geotechnical engineering. He is an associate editor of Vadose Zone Journal. He has worked on several research projects funded by National Science Foundation, China National Petroleum Corporation, Hess Corporation, and Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. He is an author or co-author on 35 journal articles published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, and Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, etc. He received his Ph.D. from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2019 and his Bachelor degree from Wuhan University of Technology in 2014.

Nick Machairas, Ph.D., Haley & Aldrich, Juan Pestana, Sc.D., P.E., Geosyntec, Antonios Vytiniotis, Ph.D., P.E., Geocomp - biographies coming soon

Xin Wei, Ph.D., University of Michigan

Dr. Xin Wei is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan, supported by the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship. He earned his Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, including a period as a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include risk, reliability, and resilience analysis of natural hazards, leveraging interdisciplinary approaches such as remote sensing, geospatial modeling, and both data-driven and physics-based methods. During the postdoctoral fellowship, he is exploring integrated AI-physics solutions to understand the impact of past landslides on communities and to develop risk assessment tools aimed at mitigating future impacts.