The Evolution of Geotech - 25 Years of Innovation

Dr. Reginald Hammah, P.Eng., is the Rock Mechanics Lead (West Africa) in the Accra office of Golder Associates. He has a strong background in numerical modelling and application of software tools to geomechanics problems, including stress and stability analysis of slopes and underground excavations. He is also very experienced in the use of probabilistic and risk assessment techniques in geotechnical analysis. Dr. Hammah graduated with a Masters degree in Structural Engineering from the Zaporozhye Industrial Institute in the Ukraine in 1993. He immediately went to Canada to pursue further studies and obtained his Ph.D. in Rock Mechanics from the University of Toronto in 1998. In December 1998, Dr. Hammah joined the Mine Waste Group in the Mississauga office of Golder Associates. He later moved to the Sudbury office as a Rock Mechanics Specialist. In 2000 he joined a team of professors at the University of Toronto to help apply for a major research grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. Dr. Hammah served as research manager for the Lassonde Institute that was born out of this grant. He was also the Technical Co-Chair for the 2002 North American Rock Mechanics Symposium. Thereafter Dr. Hammah moved over full-time to Rocscience Inc. He participated in the development of programs such as Phase2, Slide and RocData. He also helped develop and teach several Rocscience training courses and seminars. Dr. Hammah rejoined Golder Associates in 2010 to help the company grow its business in Africa.

Dr. Thamer Yacoub, P.Eng. is the CEO & President of Rocscience. He has more than 25 years of experience in geomechanics numerical modeling. Thamer has a wide range of experience in several numerical modeling applications, covering topics including slope stability analysis, settlement and foundation analysis, surface and underground stress analysis. He also has extensive experience in probabilistic analysis of slopes. Thamer received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Civil Engineering in 1986 and 1990 from the University of Baghdad in Iraq. He then obtained his Ph.D. degree in numerical geomechanics from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1999. Thereafter, Thamer joined Rocscience Inc. as a geomechanics specialist in 1999. Thamer was involved in developing the boundary element engine for Examine, and the finite element engine for RS 2. He was also the lead developer for Settle. Thamer has extensive experience in fluid flow analysis and developed the groundwater engine for Slide 2 and RS 2. Ongoing areas of interest include material model development, soil-structure interaction, shear strength reduction, Slope stability analysis, and three-dimensional finite element modeling in RS 3. Thamer has developed and taught several Rocscience workshops and seminars. He is the primary course instructor for both the Rocscience standard short courses as well as the customized course packages. He has presented courses around the world in North and South America, the Middle East, Asia, New Zealand and Australia.

Dr. John Curran is the founder and CEO of Rocscience and Robert Smith Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, University of Toronto. Over his 32-year career at the University of Toronto, he taught a wide range of subjects including rock and soil mechanics, soil dynamics, computational geomechanics, and the finite element method. His research focused on the development of boundary element and finite element techniques for 2D and 3D stress analysis of underground excavations including automated 3D finite element meshing techniques. He developed numerical techniques for modeling hydraulically propagated fractures in rock as well as constitutive models for with the anisotropic geomaterials. Most recently, he has been working on developing a rock fall simulator based on rigid body impact mechanics. Dr. Curran obtained his bachelor and master's degrees in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto and completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1976. He became an assistant professor in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto in 1977 and became the 1st holder of the Robert M. Smith Chair in Geotechnical Analysis and Mine Design in 1996. He started Rocscience Inc. in 1996 as a spin-off company from his research group at the University of Toronto, a company that has been very successful in the technology transfer of academic knowledge to the working engineer, in the form of fast and easy to use software