Michael Hicks

Michael Hicks is Professor of Soil Mechanics at Delft University of Technology. Previously, he was Senior Lecturer and Head of Geo-Engineering at The University of Manchester. He has nearly 30 years experience in finite elements, specialising in constitutive modelling, static liquefaction, strain localisation, stochastic analysis, soil heterogeneity and adaptive mesh refinement. He has around 70 technical publications, has supervised 21 research students and 6 post-doctoral researchers, and has obtained numerous contracts from research councils, industry and the European Union. He currently supervises a team of 2 Post-Docs and 6 PhD researchers focusing on risk and variability in geotechnical, geo-environmental and geo-nuclear engineering.

Michael’s research has mainly focused on the development, validation and practical application of innovative numerical methods. In the 1980’s he was involved in: slope liquefaction studies, with Laboratorium Grond Mechanica; the stability assessment and re-design of foundations for the North Rankin A gas platform off north-west Australia, with Fugro BV; the stability assessment and re-design of artificial sand islands in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, with Gulf Canada Resources; and the 3D finite element modelling of spud-can foundations for offshore oil platforms, with Noble Denton. In the 1990’s his work included: the use of adaptive mesh refinement in analyses of well-bore stability, with KSEPL; and trigger mechanisms and the role of heterogeneity in the liquefaction of hydraulic sand fills, with Golder Associates. Recent research activities have included: the characterisation, modelling, handling and geological disposal of radioactive waste, with Sellafield Limited and Ove Arup; and the characterisation, modelling and influence of heterogeneity on the performance of, and risks posed by, tailings dams and long slopes in general, with KGHM and Boskalis.

Michael was Chairman of the Organising Committee for Geotechnique’s 2005 Symposium in Print, “Risk and Variability in Geotechnical Engineering,” and is Editor of a recently published (2007) Thomas Telford book by the same name. He is Chairman of the British Geotechnical Association’s Working Group on “Numerical Methods in Design,” is a member of the Board of Directors of ALERT Geomaterials, was Chairman of ALERT’s 2007 Workshop Session on “Inverse and Stochastic Modelling,” is on the Editorial Panel of the international journal “Computers and Geotechnics,” is a member of the ISSMGE Technical Committee (TC 103) on “Numerical Methods in Geomechanics,” and is Chairman of the Organising Committee for the 8th European Conference on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering (Delft, 2014). He was awarded the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Geotechnical (Gold) Research Medal in 1999, for a 1998 Geotechnique paper on the static liquefaction of hydraulic sand fills.