Presentation of professor Patrick SELVADURAI

Professor A.P.S. Selvadurai is one of the co-founders and leaders of geomechanics at an international level.  He has received several prestigious prizes as Humboldt and Max Planck Prizes in Germany and Killam Prize in Canada. He is the unique Canadian researcher in sciences and engineering having received this whole set of Prizes. After a bachelor degree obtained from University of Brighton and Imperial College (London) and a master degree in Stanford (California), his PhD thesis in theoretical mechanics was defended in Nottingham University (United Kingdom). He was first internationally recognised for his analytical works in theoretical solid mechanics. Today his works in environmental geomechanics are devoted to fluid-grains interactions (particularly water-soil), the pollutant transports in porous media, the nuclear waste disposals, and, more recently, the CO2 storage. He has more specifically developed mathematical models, which are crucial to describe the multi-phase nature of geomaterials (the three phases are constituted by the granular skeleton, the interstitial water or oil, and the interstitial air or natural gaz). He has published 245 papers in Web of Sciences Journals and 286 papers in congress proceedings. He his member of the advisory boards of 11 international journals and also fellow of several academies like the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy of Mechanics, ... Dr A.P.S. Selvadurai has already been invited by Grenoble Institute of Technology as Invited Professor for three months to deliver classes in environmental geomechanics in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure pour l'Energie, l'Eau et l'Environnement (Ense3) and to participate to researches leaded in this field by Sols Solides Structures Risques laboratory (3SR - GrenobleINP, UJF, CNRS).  His works are thus positioned perfectly in the environment axis of Grenoble INP. Dr Selvadurai is also an active member of the research network ALERT Geomaterials (co-founded by GrenobleINP in 1989), which has awarded him its Research Prize in 2010. The environmental geomechanics is an essential field for the understanding and the mastery of our natural environment, either in relation with soil, water and air pollutions or to preserve lives and estates with respect to natural and technological risks, which are more and more of catastrophic nature with the global climate change. Advances in these fields need refined experimental campaigns in laboratories and in situ, coupled with the development of mathematical and numerical models able to describe in a reliable manner the chemo-thermo-hydro-mechanical couplings in geomaterials. Dr Selvadurai has been a world leader in the development of these models, which are playing a central role in what is called today environmental geomechanics. In brief, Dr Selvadurai is an outstanding scientific scholar, whose humanism and culture are moreover remarkable beyond his brilliant curriculum vitae.