Biography

I obtained my B.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering from Sharif University of Technology (the top Engineering School in Iran) in 2002, my M.Sc. degree in Geotechnical Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology in 2004, and my PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from University of Exeter in 2008.

After my PhD graduation, I worked as postdoctoral researcher on a number of industry/academia projects at several institutions across Europe including University of Strathclyde in the UK, Plaxis BV in the Netherlands, and Aalto University in Finland. In 2013 I was appointed Assistant Professor in Geomechanics in the Department of Civil Engineering at University of Nottingham. In 2017, I joined University of Warwick as Associate Professor in Civil Engineering and promoted to Reader in 2021. In 2019 I was also conferred an Honorary Professor at the Southwest Jiaotong University in China. I was the PI and Coordinator of the ‘MINRESCUE’ project (EC-RFCS - link to webpageLink opens in a new window) to develop new solutions for valorisation of mining wastes in construction industry where I led a team of twelve universities and industry partners across Europe. I am the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the ICE Journal of Machine Learning and Data Science in GeotechnicsLink opens in a new window, which was established in 2024.

Research Interests

My main research interests are in resources and energy geotechnics and geomaterials/geostructures modelling. The main focus is applied research on addressing the most challenging practical issues that industry faces when dealing with the behaviour of different geo/construction materials, from plastic clays to porous materials and rocks, to materials that do not have the typical characteristics of soils, e.g. mortars or mining wastes.

The primary directions of my research are constitutive model development for civil engineering materials, numerical implementation and experimental verification, integrated theoretical, experimental and numerical modelling of natural/man-made material's behaviour for improved geostructures simulation, development of sustainable construction materials, and novel experimental solutions to understand and/or alter the hydraulic and mechanical behaviour of soils as well as recycled construction materials.

Teaching

Module leader for:

• ES3B6: Geotechnical Engineering (30 credits Third Year students)
• ES96V: Finite Element Methods for Tunnelling (15 credits TUGS MSc students)
• ES3G1: Geotechnical Engineering (15 credits CE Degree Apprenticeship students)

Contributions to:

• ES410: MEng Group Project (Supervising 4th year group project EcoVillage)
• ES327: BEng Individual Project (Supervising 3 Third Year Projects each year)
• ES97M: MSc TUGS Group Design Project (Co-supervising the 45 credits MSc Projects)
• ES99J: MSc Humanitarian Engineering Individual Project

Selected Recent Publications

Selected recent journal publications (for full list refer to 'Publications' page):

• Vo, L., Hillier, S. and Rezania, M. (2025). The mineralogical composition and mechanical characteristics of selected European coal mining wastes and their experimental correlation. ASCE's Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 151(1), 04024138.
• Ma, G., Rezania, M., Nezhad, M.M. and Phoon, K.K. (2024). Multivariate Copula-based approaches for evaluating runout distances of landslides with sparse field data. Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 250, 110270.
• Foghi, E.J., Vo, T., Rezania, M., Nezhad, M.M. and Ferrara, L. (2024). Early age hydration behaviour of foam concrete containing a coal mining waste: novel experimental procedures and effects of capillary pressure. Construction and Building Materials, 414, 134811.
• Dejaloud, H., Rezania, M. and Khalili, N. (2024). Non-stationary anisotropy-dependent critical state for clays. Géotechnique, 1-17.
• Dejaloud, H. and Rezania, M. (2023). Double image stress point bounding surface model for monotonic and cyclic loading on anisotropic clays. Acta Geotechnica 18, 2427–2456.
• Ma, G., Rezania, M., and Nezhad, M.M. (2022). Stochastic assessment of landslide influence zone by material point method and generalized geotechnical random field theory. International Journal of Geomechanics, 22(4), 04022002.

Projects and Grants

Major grants include:

• PI and Project coordinator: From Mining Waste to Valuable Resource: New Concepts for a Circular Economy (MINRESCUE). Funded by European Commission (EC) Research Fund of Coal and Steel (EC-RFCS); 2020-2024; 3.18 M €.
• Co-I: Removal and mitigation of pollution from the use of pesticides (RECYCLE). Funded by EC-Horizon2020-RISE; 2020-2024; 1.35 M €.
• Co-I: Trapping and removal of X-ray contrast medium agents from water resource and stream sediments (REMEDI). Funded by EC-Horizon2020-ITN; 2020-2024; 1.35 M €.
• Co-I: Smarter Lignite Open Pit Engineering Solutions (SLOPES). Funded by EC-RFCS; 2015-2018; 3.30 M €.

Prospective Collaborators

I am always looking for high quality PhD students or collaborators to work on current or new research projects. Please directly contact if interested.