Prof Gabriele Chiaro

Professor of Geotechnical Engineering

BSc & MSc (Italy), PhD (Tokyo), JSPS Fellow

MEngNZ, MNZGS, MNZSEE, MASEE, MISSMGE

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Canterbury

Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand

Office: Level 4, Civil/Mech Building, Room E439

Tel: +64-3-369-2248 Ext:92248

Email: gabriele.chiaro@canterbury.ac.nz

URL: http://www.civil.canterbury.ac.nz/staff/GChiaro.shtml

Welcome to Gabriele Chiaro's website.

Gabriele is a Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, specialising in "Geotechnical Engineering for Resilience and Sustainability." His research encompasses various areas, including:

Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering and related problems
Geo-disaster Risk Assessment and Mitigation
Experimental Geotechnics (soil behaviour from very small to large strain levels)
Geoenvironmental Engineering
Ground Improvement Techniques for Seismic-Resilient Structures
Computational Geotechnics (constitutive, DEM and FEM modelling)

Gabriele holds BSc (2004) and MSc (2007) degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio in Italy, a PhD in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan (2010), and a PG Certificate in Tertiary Teaching from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand (2020). His academic career spans 18 years, with 5 years spent in Japan, 3 years in Australia, and 10 years in New Zealand.

His research has received sponsorship through various competitive grant awards from funding agencies, including EQC/NHC, MBIE (Smart Ideas Endeavour Fund), QuakeCoRE, DEVORA, JSPS, and JST. To date, he has secured over NZ$ 3 million in external research funding, with more than NZ$ 2 million of this as the primary investigator. In 2014, he was awarded the prestigious JSPS Research Fellowship.

He authored or co-authored over 160 technical publications, and delivered several keynote/special lectures at top tear geotechnical conferences. His accolades include JGS Best Paper Award (2022), IABSE Outstanding Scientific Paper Award (2021), and NZSEE Otto Glogau Award (2020).

Gabriele was the Team Leader of the 2016 NZSEE “Learning from Earthquake” Mission in Kumamoto, Japan, and Team Co-Leader of the 2015 JGS/JSCE “Learning from Earthquake” Mission in Nepal. He is a member of the ISSMGE TC101 "Laboratory Testing" and the ISSMGE AsRTC1 "Geotechnical Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change-induced Geo-disasters in Asia-Pacific Regions".