Professor Stephen Foster - Global Leadership and Impact
Congratulations to UNSW Dean of Engineering and ex CIES Director and Head of School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Professor Stephen Foster who has been elected President of the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib).
The fib, (Fédération internationale du béton), is a not-for-profit international association formed by 45 national member groups and approximately 1000 corporate and individual members.
Its mission is to develop at an international level the study of scientific and practical matters capable of advancing the technical, economic, aesthetic and environmental performance of concrete construction.
The role of President reflects Stephen’s long-term contribution to community on research and education. He has served fib as Vice President for the last two years. in 2018 he was awarded Honorary life member of the fib, in recognition of his significant personal contributions to the work of the fib, and for which he was also made a Fellow.
Professor Foster received his PhD from UNSW in 1993 and has a distinguished record in the field of structural concrete and concrete materials. His main research interests are in the fields of bringing new materials technologies to the design of concrete structures, including fibre and ultra-high-performance concrete, low carbon construction materials such as Geopolymer, and alkaline activated concretes and high strength reinforcing steels.
His research on Strut-and-Tie Modelling, on High Strength Concrete Columns and Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete, much of which was funded through ARC Discovery and Linkage project grants, now forms the basis of many of the design rules in the Australian Concrete Structures Standard, AS3600-2018. This has impact on many thousands of structures built throughout Australia each year. Similarly, his work has provided significant impact on the construction industry through incorporation in the fib Model Code 2010.
In addition to his experience in testing of high performanc
e, high strength concrete, Professor Foster has developed a powerful non-linear finite element program for the modelling of concrete structures, which has assisted in the development of numerous experimental programmes and in the post analysis of the results. He has considerable research experience on strength and ductility in reinforced concrete structures and has published widely in the field.
In 2015 Stephen was awarded honorary membership of the Concrete Institute of Australia (CIA) in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development and use of concrete in Australia. He is a Fellow of Engineers Australia, and a member of several Australian and international Standards Committees.
Our heartiest congratulations to Professor Foster on all his achievements.
