HISTORIC MASONRY STRUCTURES
HISTORIC MASONRY STRUCTURES
HISTORIC MASONRY STRUCTURES
INVITED LECTURERS
Matthew DeJong
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Professor at the University of California, Berkeley
Matthew DeJong is a Professor in Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Materials at University of California, Berkeley. He was a university lecturer in Structural Engineering and a Fellow and Director of Studies in Engineering at St Catharine’s College. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Technical University of Delft and completed his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Davis, and worked as a structural design engineer in California. His research interests lie broadly in the field of structural engineering, but are primarily focused in the areas of earthquake and masonry structures.
Professor
Rana Dubeissy
Professor at the Lebanese University
Dr. Rana Dubeissy is a Professor of Architecture at the Lebanese University and an expert in safeguarding cultural heritage. She holds a PhD in Architectural Design from the University of Tokyo. Her work focuses on architectural conservation, heritage documentation, disaster risk management, emergency preparedness, and post-conflict recovery. She leads academic and field-based initiatives that engage students and local communities in documenting and protecting cultural heritage, particularly in crisis-affected contexts. Her work also encompasses capacity building and international collaboration across Lebanon and the wider Middle East.
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Professor
José Lemos
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National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC)
Dr José Lemos is a Principal Researcher at the National Laboratory for Civil Engineering (LNEC) in Lisbon, Portugal. He holds a Civil Engineering degree from the University of Porto and a PhD in Rock Mechanics from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He has been involved in the development of the discrete element codes UDEC and 3DEC. His research interests include dam foundations in rock, seismic analysis of masonry structures and discrete element modelling.
Professor
Assistant Professor at Rome Tor Vergata
Nicola Nodargi
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Nicola A. Nodargi is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. He received his M.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering and his M.Sc. degree in Mathematics from the same university, where he earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering in 2016. His Ph.D. thesis was selected as a finalist for the 2016 ECCOMAS Best Ph.D. Thesis award and was recognized with the 2016 GIMC Best Ph.D. Thesis award and the 2017 ECCOMAS Best Ph.D. Presentation award. As a Postdoctoral researcher, he was a visiting scholar at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. His research activity, framed in the field of computational mechanics, focuses on the development of computational strategies for the analysis of structures exhibiting material and geometric nonlinearities, with a particular interest in the static and dynamic response of historical masonry constructions.
Assistant Professor
Gabriele Milani
05
Professor
Professor at Politecnico di Milano
Full Professor of Structural Mechanics at the Politecnico di Milan, Italy. Chair professor at Yangzhou University, PRC (2019-2020). His scientific interests are manyfold and include masonry modelling and experimentation, seismic engineering, preservation of historical constructions, timber, limit analysis, innovative strengthening with composite materials, Structural Health Monitoring, genetic algorithms (GA), rubber vulcanization and elastomeric seismic isolation. He published more than 350 papers in high impact international journals and co-chaired both the International Masonry Conference in 2018 and the International Brick and Block Masonry Conference in 2024. EB member in both high reputation journals and international congresses, he was awarded a Telford Premium and a K.J. Bathe Award. He is Associate Editor of Engineering Failure Analysis and Engineering Structures, both published by Elsevier.
Eugenio Ruocco
Professor at the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”
Professor Eugenio Ruocco is a researcher and educator specializing in structural mechanics and computational modeling. His expertise includes structural stability, the Finite Element Method (FEM), the Boundary Element Method (BEM), and isogeometric approaches. His research covers masonry structures, plates, beams, and innovative materials. In recent years, he has focused on integrating artificial intelligence into structural mechanics, developing neural network algorithms for defect detection and structural performance assessment. His findings have been published in international journals.
He has collaborated with leading institutions, including Texas A&M University (J.N. Reddy), Graz University of Technology (Gernot Beer), and the University of Queensland (C.M. Wang), contributing to structural modeling and optimization. He has also been a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore, the University of Newcastle (Australia), Texas A&M, and Middle East Technical University.
Beyond research, Professor Ruocco is actively involved in academia, serving on editorial boards and as a reviewer for leading international journals. He supervises PhD students and teaches courses in Structural Mechanics. With over 60 peer-reviewed publications, he continues to contribute to international research projects in structural engineering and computational analysis.
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Professor
Valentina Russo
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Professor at University of Naples Federico II
Valentina Russo is Full Professor of Restoration in the Department of Architecture at the University of Naples Federico II. She was the Vice-President of the Italian Society for the Restoration of Architecture (SIRA) and a member of its Board of Directors. At the University of Naples Federico II, she directs the School of Specialization in Architectural and Landscape Heritage and the 3rd level Master’s degree in Restoration and Design for Archaeology. Since 2014 she has directed the “Architettura e Restauro” series (Nardini editore, Florence). She coordinated research projects on competitive calls and is the main author of more than 150 papers and books dedicated to the theoretical, to the historical-critical and to the technical-planning aspects of architectural and landscape restoration.
Her research interests are largely focused on the themes of the History of Construction and on the building site through the centuries, also investigated in relation to the repercussions on contemporary restoration and damage prevention projects.
Professor
Marianne Saba
Professor at the University of Balamand (Lebanon)
Marianne Saba is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Balamand. Her research expertise lies in the development and characterization of advanced materials for civil engineering applications, with a particular focus on geopolymers, eco-construction materials, and sustainable binders. She has led numerous projects on the experimental and numerical evaluation of materials, investigating their chemical, mechanical, microstructural, thermal, and durability properties for innovative engineering use. She leads national and international research collaborations with institutions in France and Greece, and serves as an active member of AUF’s Commission d’Internationalisation, contributing to academic exchange and scientific advancement in the region.
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Professor