Biographical note

He mainly focuses on the challenging areas of mining engineering, geotechnical engineering, rock mechanics and numerical simulation analysis. His research projects have been supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (51474188; 51074140; 51310105020), National Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province of China (E2014203012), and Science and Technology Department of Hebei Province of China (072756183), etc. He is the recipient of 6 state-level and province-level awards and 2015 Endeavour Research Fellowship provided by the Australian Government. He has published more than 90 academic papers and books. These include 85 articles in peer reviewed journals, 6 monographs and textbooks. He has been authorized 4 patents and 1 software of intellectual property rights in China. Hossein Masoumi, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering, in the Faculty of Engineering at Monash University, in Australia. He received his PhD from the University of New South Wales. His research focuses on rock mechanics, particularly the size/scale and shape effects on intact rock, constitutive modelling of intact rock exhibiting size/scale behaviors under different test conditions, shaly-sandstone micro-scale characterization, and non-persistent jointed rock characterization. He has had over ten projects supported by the Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) and the Mining Education Australia (MEA) Collaborative Research Project. He has published over 30 papers. Dr. Oh received his PhD from the University of Illinois in the USA. His work focusses on combining geotechnical engineering and mine-geomechanics to improve safety, productivity and sustainability in the Australian resources sector. He is involved in several Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) projects and is lead investigator on a project on the fundamentals of rock failure mechanisms under different geotechnical environments. He has published over 29 journal articles, conferences and reports. Dr. Zhang has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Kentucky in the US. His work focuses on rock fracture mechanics and engineering, safety mining, and roadway support under complex and difficult conditions. He has presented numerous lectures on rock mechanics and engineering, mine pressure and strata control. He has lead and participated in National Natural Science Foundation of China projects, and over 40 projects with industry. He has published more than 60 papers, one book, and holds 30 patents.