Civil Engineering Departmental Seminar - Bridging the Gap in Geotechnical Engineering: How Global Failures Accelerated Technical Expertise
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Bridging the Gap in Geotechnical Engineering: How Global Failures Accelerated Technical Expertise
This lecture discusses how major geotechnical failures, particularly in the mining sector, have accelerated technical reflection, regulatory changes, governance practices, and engineering education. Rather than treating failures only as isolated events, the presentation explores how they expose gaps between available knowledge, professional competence, design practice, regulation, and teaching. Special attention is given to tailings dams, risk governance, credible failure modes, monitoring, and the need to transform technical knowledge into engineering judgment. The central argument is that failures do not create knowledge; they reveal whether knowledge has become competence.
Fernando A. M. Marinho is Associate Professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, working at the Polytechnic School and the Institute of Geosciences. He holds a PhD from Imperial College London. His research focuses on unsaturated soils, soil-atmosphere interaction, geotechnical testing, slope stability, tailings, and risk assessment in geotechnical engineering. He has also been involved in technical reviews, research projects, and educational initiatives related to geotechnical failures, tailings dams, and the transfer of knowledge into professional practice.