ProfHadi Khabbaz

Professor Hadi Khabbaz is an award-winning civil engineer whose work has made significant contributions of a fundamental and pioneering nature, in particular, in the field of unsaturated soil mechanics.

Hadi received his PhD degree in Geotechnical Engineering from UNSW (1997), his MSc degree in Geo-environmental Engineering from Shiraz University, and a BSc (Honours) degree in Civil Engineering from the same institution.

He is an expert in Geotechnical and Geo-environmental Engineering at the School of Civil, Environmental and Sociotechnical Engineering, UTS, and the Head of Discipline (Geotechnical and Transport Engineering). Hadi has focused on the theoretical and numerical analysis of soft soils, granular particles and unsaturated porous media, with strong applications to real-life engineering problems. 

He has been involved in soil behaviour modelling and ground improvement research since 1993, taking an active role in conducting practical research in the characterisation and modification of problematic soils and associated current ground improvement techniques more than for 25 years. His early work on the effective stress principle in unsaturated soils is increasingly cited in the literature and is considered a significant contribution to the field.

In 1999, Hadi received the joint section award for the most valuable paper at the 8th ANZ conference on Geomechanics. He has recently received 6 more best paper awards together with his colleagues and research students.

He served as the Chair of the Australian Geomechanics Society (Sydney), a technical society of Engineers Australia. He is the author/co-author of more than 300 articles in civil and geotechnical engineering. He is also a technical reviewer of many International Journals and several research organisations.