Professor Duan works at the interface of materials science and civil engineering, being an early pioneer of development of nanoscience and nanocomposites for civil engineering applications. He has led a range of ground-breaking research across both the engineering and materials science disciplines, collaborating with architects, mechanical engineers, soil scientist, applied mathematicians and physicists. Professor Duan graduated from Tianjin University (China) in engineering mechanics with BEng and MEng in 1997 and 2002, respectively. He received his PhD from the National University of Singapore (Singapore) in Civil Engineering in April 2006. From 1997 to 1999, he worked in the field of assessment and rehabilitation of bridge and road as well as assessment of pile foundation as a structural engineer in Tianjin Municipal and Highway Research Institute, China. Starting from Feb. 2006, He worked as post-doctoral fellow in Singapore and Canada. He recently joined Monash University as a Lecturer in Nov 2008. Professor Lihai Zhang received his PhD at The University of Melbourne in 2009. He has more than 10 years working experience in industry. Prof Zhang is best known for this expertise in numerically modelling fluid flow, mass transfer, and reactive transport in deformed porous media as well as developing advanced stochastic analysis methods. By leading an Infrastructure Asset Protection & Management research group in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering, his research work mainly focuses on reliability-based life-cycle assessment of built infrastructure, building cladding subject to impact, corrosion of concrete materials and structural health monitoring using non-destructive field testing methodology. Professor Shah has made unique, original and extensive contributions to better understand and define properties of cement-based materials and developing new advanced materials which has become a world standard in these fields.He is responsible for developing high performance concrete, fibre reinforced concrete, self-consolidating concrete, shrinkage reducing admixtures, carbon nano-tube reinforced cement-based composites and extrusion processing of concrete. These have revolutionized the way modern concretes are used worldwide.​