Dr. Rostami is Director of the Excavation Engineering and Earth Mechanics Institute (EMI) at Colorado School of Mines (CSM), USA. He has a BSc in mining engineering from Univ. of Tehran, Iran and his MSc and PhD in mining engineering in 92 and 97 from CSM, respectively. He has been a faculty at Univ. of Tehran from 1988 through 2002, a full time consultant with major A&E companies from 2002 to 2007 (Brierley Asso, Jenny Engineering, CDM Smith, etc.) He joined the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), as Centennial Chair of Carrier Development in Mining in 2007 and moved back to CSM in 2016. He has over 27 years of experience in design, management, research, and teaching in the field of mining, tunneling, and underground construction. Dr. Rostami is a registered Professional Engineering (PE) in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia (USA). He is a member of SME, ASCE, ARMA, ISEE, IRSME, IRRMS, and TRB AFF-60 tunneling committee. He is currently one of the Editor in Chiefs of Tunneling and Underground Space Technology (published by Elsevier). Dr. Rostami is a member of the executive committee of the International Tunneling Association (ITA) and a member of the editorial board of Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering journal, and the representing UCA of SME in the Mining and Minerals Engineering journal of SME. He is the current chair of the Research Committee and past chair of the faculty/student grant selection of SME. He has offered short courses on tunneling, shaft construction, and related topics for SME and other organizations. He has published over 80 Peer reviewed publications and ~150 conference papers, and over 100 technical reports and proposals, and reviews technical papers on a regular basis. He is one of the founding members of Iranian American Academics & Professionals (IAAP), member of the board of directors of Child Foundation, also the founder and incorporator of Professors Without Borders (PWOB).
Nicola Careddu, Ph.D. Mining Engineer, is Associate Professor of Excavation Engineering at the University of Cagliari, Italy. His main area of expertise is in Mining Engineering, particularly focused on quarrying, processing and economic assessment of dimension stone resources. His research work includes Sustainable Mining, Circular Economy, Geo-heritage and Geoethics and it is carried out both “in situ” and in the Dimension Stone Laboratory at the Engineering Faculty. Prof. Careddu is the author of more than 90 papers on international journals and as part of conference proceedings. His research activities are funded by regional, national and international entities. He is a scientific board member of several specialistic journals and he is and a member of both the organizing and scientific committees of the international congress “Global Stone Congress” as well as co-ordinating international conferences and workshops. He regularly acts as a reviewer. Prof. Careddu was the chief of the project “Reduction of marble waste landfills through the enhancement of CaCO3”, which was fully funded by Sardinian Regional Government. Since 2007, he has been the referring academic from the University of Cagliari for the R4ST (Research for Stone and Technology) at the Carrara networking fair. He is supportive of the efforts to link research with industry. He is a member of the PhD board of the PhD program in Earth and Environmental Sciences and Technologies at the University of Cagliari. Prof. Careddu is a member of the Heritage Stone Task Group (HSTG) which has been established as a formal entity of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). He has worked on expanding the network of researchers and promoted the set-up of several international agreements and memorandum of understandings with universities and research institutes, companies and organizations worldwide. Further details are available on his LinkedIn profile.
He graduated from the University of Pisa with a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1991, he specialised in foreign trade and Transfer of Technology for the stone industry at The Foreign Trade Institute and the Region Toscana. He had been lecturer of Machinery/Environment Interaction (quarries and stone development) for 8 years, and President of the Course in Mechanical Engineering for the marble industry at the Engineering Faculty of Pisa University. He has been a member of several European committees for training in marble machinery (EN). He has been an advisor to the Provincial Industrialists’ Association of Massa and Carrara for about 30 years in all areas of marble and safety. He is currently Deputy President of A.N.I.M. (National Association of Mining Engineers). For about 30 years, he has managed quarry development projects in Italy and abroad for marble, granite and other stone quarries, including due diligence, design, stability assessments, market surveys and use of machinery, mainly in France, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Balkans, Costa Rica, Sudan and Turkey. He has developed joint projects through the university in conjunction with Politecnico of Turin, the Geology Faculty of Turin University and the Engineering Faculty of Pisa University. He has been working with professors of the Engineering Faculty, Marble Division, at Afyon University, Turkey. He has worked at the planning (master plan) of Carrara quarries (RISORSA Marmo Project). For over 20 years, he has worked with leading manufacturers of marble machinery: Micheletti Macchine, Benucci, Korfmann, Dazzini S.r.l., Lochtmans, Benetti, Gaspari Menotti in engineering and field testing. He has written books and scientific articles about natural stone. He has organised many scientific conferences and workshops about marble, including two international ones: the Second World Landslide Forum at FAO, Rome, from 3rd to 7th October 2011, and the World Conference in 1998.
Björn Schouenborg, (PhD Mineralogy & Petrology University of Lund 1989) is senior researcher at RISE, Research Institutes of Sweden. He has been working within the field of natural stones and aggregates since 1990, from microstructures to material, products, construction and planning of sustainable, built society. Mostly applied research but also as consultant (developing QA systems, requirements and testing) for some major building projects, especially with marble façade cladding, such as the renovation of Australia’s National Library in Canberra, damage investigation of high rise building in Chicago, Capital One Hall in Washington DC and most recently, the Finlandia Hall in Helsinki (re-opening spring 2025). Björn is frequently asked for in damage investigations of buildings with natural stones. Lately he has also been consulted in several projects about using stone as a structural element in building. He coordinated a large EU research project on marble cladding in 2000-2005 and was later WG leader of activities in the integrated stone project I-STONE on durability and selection of stones for various applications. He is frequently reviewing scientific papers about stones and aggregates for international magazines. He has also organized several national and international conferences on stones and aggregates. Dr. Schouenborg has collaborated closely with the national stone industry for the past 25 years and lead many of their innovation projects. A few examples are dimensioning of paving products, mechanical properties of stone, sustainability aspects (LCA and more), durability and testing, heritage stones and development of the Swedish Stone handbook for exterior, interior, façade, restoration, maintenance etc. He has also been giving education for the industry on geology. Dr. Schouenborg is the chairman of the Swedish Standards Institute Technical Committee 508 on Natural stones, representing Sweden in CEN TC 246 Natural stones (and as expert in all the working groups) and TC 178 Paving products. He is also member of ASTM C18 on Dimension stones. He has initiated and coordinated several Nordic research projects, several of them resulting in new European testing standards. He is also representing Sweden in the global standardization on natural stones in ISO 327. He is president of IAEG C10 Building stones and ornamental rocks since 2007. He was the first chair of IUGS sub-commission on heritage stones (2012 – 2020) and one of the initiators of the work on Heritage stones classification. He was chair of the IUGS Commission on Heritage 2017-2020. He is still member of the Heritage stone task group. Member of the international scientific committee of the Global Stone Congress since 2010.
He graduated in Civil Engineering from the University of Salerno in 2001. He is an independent researcher with over 24 years of experience in the field of geomatics, computer graphics and applied artificial intelligence. He is specialized in advanced 3D survey techniques and multi-physical analysis, focused on experimentation and technological innovation. He holds a patent with Dr. Orlando Pandolfi for “System for the remote visual representation of a temporally evolving spatial environment”, developed specifically for natural stone quarries. He has works on “Integration of historical (2016–2025) and satellite surveys into Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for advanced analyses”, “Development of artificial intelligence algorithms for 3D surveys of infrastructure and architectural studies”. “Development of digital models for structural analysis and advanced diagnostics with applications in the medical, mechanical and electronic sectors”
