Meet Our Senior Partners

Professor Lord Robert Mair
Professor Lord Robert Mair

Lord Robert Mair is a geotechnical engineer with more than 50 years of experience in research and practice. He is a founding Director of GCG, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society, and a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Engineering (USA). He specialises in geotechnical aspects of many types of underground construction and has advised on numerous projects both in the UK and worldwide. He was until recently Head of Civil Engineering at Cambridge University, where he was appointed to a Professorship after 27 years full-time in industry. He founded the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) at Cambridge, which pioneers new techniques for sensing performance of infrastructure.

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Mr Tony Bracegirdle
Mr Tony Bracegirdle

Mr Anthony Bracegirdle is a geotechnical engineer with more than 45 years of experience in practice around the world. His areas of expertise include slope stabilisation, retaining wall design, earthworks, hydrogeology and groundwater flow, soft clay engineering, pile foundations, grout injection and ground stabilisation techniques, tunnel construction, shallow and deep-water ground investigation, and seismic design of earth structures. He has been involved in numerous forensic investigations and in recent years has given evidence to evidentiary hearings in many different international jurisdictions.

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Dr Chris Menkiti
Dr Chris Menkiti

Dr Menkiti has 36 years world-wide experience in geotechnical engineering. He has worked on all sides of the construction supply chain in the UK and abroad. Dr Menkiti has expertise in tunnelling, slopes, earthworks, deep excavations, retaining walls, foundation systems, laboratory & field testing, characterisation of granular materials, instrumentation & monitoring, liquefaction risk, bulk cargo instability, seismic design and construction impact mitigation. He has undertaken forensic investigations, provided expert evidence at international hearings and served as Chairman of the British Geotechnical Association.

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Professor Kelvin Higgins
Professor Kelvin Higgins

In 2019 Kelvin became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Since 2012 he has been a Visiting Professor at Imperial College, London. Until recently he was Chair of the British Geotechnical Association and Chair of CIRIA’s Geotechnical Advisory Panel. Since joining GCG in 1986 Kelvin has worked on the application of numerical methods to engineering problems, including the design of tunnels, retaining structures, highways, dams, embankments, cuttings, and foundations (offshore and onshore). During his career he has gained practical and design experience of foundations, highway construction earthworks (cuttings and embankments & drainage schemes). He has acted as an expert witness in legal disputes. In addition, he has directed and facilitated research in different aspects of geotechnical engineering.

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Dr Nesha Kovacevic
Dr Nesha Kovacevic

Dr Nebojsa Kovacevic is a geotechnical engineer with more than 38 years of practical experience. He is an expert in numerical analyses of a broad range of geotechnical subjects, such as slopes, dams, embankments, deep excavations, pile foundations, tunnels and various forms of earth retaining structures. He has widely published and presented at many conferences, seminars, and workshops.

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Dr Felix Schroeder
Dr Felix Schroeder

Dr Felix Schroeder is a geotechnical engineer with nearly 20 years of experience. Building on his research work he has developed an in-depth expertise in numerical modelling and has applied this form of analysis to a wide range of projects in the UK and around the world. His extensive experience covers onshore infrastructure and building projects as well as near-shore and offshore projects, including ports and windfarms.

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Mr John Davis
Mr John Davis

Mr. John Davis is an engineering geologist and geotechnical engineer with over 37 years’ experience. He has particular experience and expertise in the following areas: Engineering geology, tunnelling, groundwater, ground improvement, foundations, retaining structures, slope stability earthworks, Quaternary engineering geology, ground investigation and disputes involving unforeseen ground conditions.

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Professor Zeljko Cabarkapa
Professor Zeljko Cabarkapa

Professor Zeljko Cabarkapa is a geotechnical engineer with more than 34 years of experience in practice in the UK and around the world. His area of expertise includes forensic engineering and site characterisation, ground investigation, rock slope stability, slope stabilisation, retaining wall design, groundwater flow, earthworks, embankments over soft soil, ground improvement, reclamations, foundation design, tunnel construction, seismic design, numerical analysis, and partially saturated soils. He has been involved in numerous forensic investigations and in recent years has given evidence to evidentiary hearings in many different international jurisdictions.

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Dr Gary Choy
Dr Gary Choy

Dr Gary Choy is a chartered engineer with over 22 years of practical experience. His area of expertise includes tunnelling, pipelines, deep excavations and foundation systems, instrumentation & monitoring, and construction impact assessment for third party infrastructure. He has been providing highly specialised pipeline and tunnel expertise to utility companies including Thames Water and Affinity Water to ensure excellent services to customers and operational continuity, and to protect whole life asset value.

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Dr Angeliki Grammatikopoulou
Dr Angeliki Grammatikopoulou

Dr Angeliki Grammatikopoulou is a chartered civil engineer with more than 20 years’ experience in academia and industry. She specialises in soil characterisation, advanced constitutive modelling and numerical analysis of complex geotechnical problems, including foundations (onshore and offshore), retaining walls, deep excavations, tunnels and dams. Dr Grammatikopoulou has worked on prestigious commercial and infrastructure projects in the UK and abroad. Her offshore work includes the analysis of foundations for numerous offshore wind farms. She has extensive experience of tunnel and building damage assessments and in recent years she has been working extensively on mine waste disposal.

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Dr Apollonia Gasparre
Dr Apollonia Gasparre

Dr Apollonia Gasparre is a geotechnical engineer with 20 years of experience in research and practice in the UK and abroad. Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Dr Gasparre’s areas of expertise include ground characterisation, onshore and offshore ground investigation, laboratory testing, design of shallow and deep foundations, including the re-use of foundations, basement and retaining wall design, slope stability and earthworks and hydrogeology. She provides expert opinion in legal cases.

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Meet Our Senior Consultants

Professor Hugh St John
Professor Hugh St John

Prof. Hugh St John is a geotechnical engineer with more than 45 years of experience in practice around the world. His areas of expertise include deep excavations, retaining wall design, deep and shallow foundations, ground movements, earthworks, hydrogeology and groundwater flow, field studies, slope stability and soil properties.  He has been involved in numerous forensic investigations and has given evidence to evidentiary hearings.

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Dr David Hight
Dr David Hight

Dr David Hight is a geotechnical engineer with more than 50 years of experience in research and practice in the UK and around the world. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Academy of Engineering. David specialises in forensic geotechnical engineering, drawing on his background in and knowledge of site characterisation and the behaviour of soils and rocks. He has been called on to investigate the stability and performance of reclamations, tailings dams, excavated and natural slopes, tunnels, road pavements, ore cargoes, retaining structures, and foundations to onshore and offshore structures.

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Dr George Milligan
Dr George Milligan

Dr George Milligan joined the Geotechnical Consulting Group fulltime in January 1997, having been an Associate of the group since its inception in 1983, and became a Director in 1998. Prior to that, from 1979 to 1996 he was a University Lecturer in the Engineering Department of Oxford University, and a Fellow and Tutor in Engineering at Magdalen College. His research interests were in soil reinforcement(including soilnailing), tunnelling and trenchless technologies (including pipe jacking, microtunnelling and pipe bursting).

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Dr Jacqueline Skipper
Dr Jacqueline Skipper

Dr Skipper is a chartered geologist with 29 years’ experience in ground risk, investigation and interpretation of complex soils and rocks, and peer review and forensic work. She works in a wide range of projects within tunnelling, foundation design of large/tall structures, large infrastructure projects. slopes and collapse features. Her geological expertise includes Tertiary soils of the UK, periglacial soils of UK and Ireland, and complex soils and rocks worldwide.

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Dr Jerry Love
Dr Jerry Love

Dr Jerry Love is a chartered civil engineer with over 40 years experience in practice both in the UK and overseas. His area of expertise includes ground investigation, earthworks, slope stability, embankments, roads, excavations, subsidence, drainage, soft soil, foundations, piling, ground improvement, basements, retaining walls, underpinning, grouting, sinkholes, railways, pipelines, tunnelling, soil nailing, reinforced soil, horizontal directional drilling, and tree root damage. He has frequently been retained as an Expert in disputes and has given evidence in Court both in England and Scotland, as well as overseas.

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Meet Our Associate Directors

Mr Mike Crilly
Mr Mike Crilly

Mike Crilly is a geotechnical engineer with more than 35 years of experience in research and practice. He has extensive experience of raft and pile foundations, the interaction of foundations and basements with existing infrastructure, subsidence and heave resulting from the interaction of vegetation and clay soils, and the impact of tunnelling on buildings.

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Dr Philip Smith
Dr Philip Smith

Dr Smith is a geotechnical engineer with 27 years of experience, including in research as well as practical industry applications. He has particular experience and expertise in site investigation, including for geotechnical and geoenvironmental aspects. Dr Smith is also particularly experienced in dealing with issues related basement and subsurface construction, and the effects this can have on existing structures. He also has a specific interest in UXO risk assessment.

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Dr Michael Wan
Dr Michael Wan

Dr Michael Wan qualified as a chartered engineer in 2007 and has worked in the civil and geotechnical engineering industry in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong for over 20 years, with extensive design and construction experience of infrastructure and building projects involving some of the most challenging ground conditions and environments. His areas of expertise include geotechnical instrumentation & monitoring, structural health monitoring, buildings & utilities impact assessments, and foundations & deep excavations.

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Meet Our Principal Engineers

Dr Chandra Abbireddy
Dr Chandra Abbireddy

Dr Chandra Abbireddy is a geotechnical engineer with over 20 years of experience.  He has provided specialist geotechnical support for a wide variety of projects in London, elsewhere in the UK and abroad, at various project stages ranging from pre-planning (feasibility) to end of construction. He has good experience in ground investigations, foundations, basements, tunnelling, deep excavations, ground movement impact assessments, hydrogeological impact assessments, instrumentation and monitoring, stability assessments, forensic geotechnical investigations, soil characterization, machine foundations, and micro-mechanics of granular materials.

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Mr Frankie Lo
Mr Frankie Lo

Mr Frankie Lo is a chartered engineer with over 17 years of practical experience, primarily focusing on landslide risk assessment and management, slope stability and deep excavations.  He has also contributed to the continuous improvement of the industry practice through applied research. He has recently led projects on applying machine learning in geotechnical problems. Before joining GCG, Frankie was a Senior Geotechnical Engineer at the Geotechnical Engineering Office of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR.

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Meet Our Senior Geotechnical Engineers

Dr Amandine Brosse
Dr Amandine Brosse

Dr Amandine Brosse is a geotechnical engineer with 15 years of experience in research and industry, with particular emphasis on soil characterisation through site investigation, laboratory testing, instrumentation and monitoring. She has experience in characterising the behaviour of a wide range of soils, from stiff over-consolidated clays, residual soils to very soft marine & alluvial deposits, for various projects including offshore wind farms and mine waste disposal. She has expertise in advanced laboratory testing and an interest in applying data science to geotechnical problems.

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Dr Tiago Dias
Dr Tiago Dias

Dr Tiago Dias is a geotechnical engineer with more than 10 years of experience in research and industry, with particular emphasis on underground constructions, mining waste embankments, and numerical modelling. He has a special interest in modelling the processes taking place around tunnel boring machines, and their interaction with deep foundations and surrounding structures.

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Dr Riccardo Scarfone
Dr Riccardo Scarfone

Dr Riccardo Scarfone is a geotechnical engineer with 8 years of experience in research and industry, with particular emphasis on slope stability, unsaturated soils, seismic soil-structure interaction, piling, mining waste embankments, and numerical modelling. He has a special interest in modelling advanced multi-phase and multi-physics phenomena involved in soil-atmosphere interaction, with particular application to Capillary Barrier Systems employed for slope stability purposes.

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Ms Serena Che
Ms Serena Che

Ms Serena Che is a geotechnical engineer with 4 years of experience in research and industry, with particular emphasis on horizontal directional drilling and pile design and testing. She has undertaken site characterisation and geotechnical analyses in a number of offshore wind projects within the UK and internationally. She developed a particular expertise in the assessment of pile capacities and pile driving characteristics, and exploring the application of data-driven and reliability-based approaches in geotechnical engineering. Her experience covers a range of conventional to difficult ground conditions including weak rocks, as well as projects from feasibility to decommissioning stage.

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Dr Benjamin Guo
Dr Benjamin Guo

Dr Benjamin Guo is a senior geotechnical engineer with more than 5 years of experience in research and industry, with particular emphasis on lifecycle assessments of linear infrastructures, retaining wall design and numerical modelling. He has a special interest in modelling the impact of climate change on existing geotechnical infrastructures, and to propose adaptation strategies to resolve challenges posed by a changing climate.

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Associates

GCG’s Associates enlarge our pool of expertise and provide an essential link with leading academic and research institutions in the UK and overseas. Through the Associates, the consulting service draws on the most recent developments in theory and practice.

Professor D. Muir Wood

Professor R.J. Jardine

Professor R.N. Taylor

Professor S. Shibuya

Mr. R.C. Bridle

Dam Safety, UK

Professor S.A. Jefferis

Independent Consultant, UK

Professor J.R. Standing

Professor L.T. Zdravkovic

Professor T.D. O’Rourke

Professor B. Byrne