Dr. Vanapalli received his PhD from the University of Saskatchewan in 1994. Since then, he has been actively involved with research activities related to mechanics of unsaturated soils, primarily dealing with engineering properties such as shear strength, coefficient of permeability, volume change behavior and proposing innovative techniques for the design of foundations and estimating the foundation settlements in unsaturated soils.
Dr. Vanapalli has authored or co-authored over 85 research publications including a chapter of a book and two state-of-the-art reports for International Unsaturated Soil Conferences.
Dr. Vanapalli has been a Co-Chair for the Diamond Jubilee Canadian Geotechnical Conference held in Ottawa, Canada in 2007 and is Co-Chair of the 12 IACMAG, Goa, India in 2008. He has been Technical or Scientific Committee Member for several national and international conferences. He has reviewed publications for several technical journals that include Geotechnique, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Journal of Geotechnical and Geo-environmental Engineering, American Society of Testing Materials, Soil Science Society of America and Transportation Research Board.
Dr. Vanapalli has been nominated by the Civil Engineering Department and the Faculty of Engineering, University of Ottawa for the OCUFA Teaching Excellence Award (2007); University of Ottawa Award for Excellence in Teaching (2006); Civil Engineering Department for the John V. Marsh Teaching Excellence Award (2006) and received the Dean’s commendation letters for outstanding teaching evaluations several times. In addition, twelve students of Dr. Vanapalli over the last 6 years have received national honors by the Canadian Geotechnical Society for submitting best undergraduate (individual and group thesis) and graduate student papers.
Dr. Vanapalli is a volunteer for several activities of Canadian Geotechnical Society, Professional Engineers of Ontario and TC6 of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering which is responsible for promoting cooperation and exchange of knowledge in the area of mechanics of Unsaturated Soils.
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