Dr. Qi, Xiaohui joined the Department of Mechanical and Construction Engineering at the Northumbria University as a lecturer in 2020. His research interests are on reliability and back-analysis of geotechnical structures, probabilistic site investigations and data-driven methods for prediction of geotechnical and geological properties.

Prior to joining NU, Dr. Qi was a postdoctoral researcher at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2017-2020). He also was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Macau, Macau, China (2015-2017). He received his Bachelor's Degree (2009) and Ph.D. Degree (2015) from Wuhan University, China. He studied at the National University of Singapore, Singapore as an exchange student (2012-2015).

Uncertainty is an inherent feature of geotechnical engineering, as manifested in the soil property, field measurements, and various models used for geotechnical designs. His research has focused on reliability and back-analysis of geotechnical structures (e.g., slopes, shallow foundations and braced excavations) considering inherent variability of soil properties, characterization of spatial variability of geotechnical and geological properties using limited data. These researches aim to achieve a more reliable or economical design of geotechnical structures. More recently, he is interested in applying data-driven methods (such as artificial intelligence methods) to the spatial prediction of geotechnical and geological properties.

For more information on Dr. Qi’s research:

https://scholar.google.com.sg/citations?user=RokMFHEAAAAJ&hl=en /

Risk and reliability analysis of geotechnical engineering, Bayesian back-analysis of geotechnical structures, probabilistic site investigations, data-driven methods for spatial prediction of geotechnical and geological properties