Prof Dariusz Wanatowski is a Professor of Geomechanics at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. He is also the Pro-Dean of the Leeds-SWJTU Joint School, located in the Xipu campus of the Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu (China).
Professor Dariusz Wanatowski is an international expert in advanced soil mechanics. His research interests focus on the advanced laboratory soil and rock testing methods and their applications to stability analysis of geotechnical structures. Since graduating from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, he has undertaken fundamental and applied research and advanced the body of scientific and engineering knowledge in the areas of liquefaction, pre-failure instability, anisotropy of granular soils, health and safety and sustainability of the coal mines, particularly regarding the behaviour of soft soils in European mines. His research contribution to understanding failure mechanisms of granular slopes has been internationally recognised by nomination to represent the United Kingdom on two prestigious Technical Committees of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, TC-303 on Coastal and River Disaster Mitigation and Rehabilitation and TC-208 on Stability of Natural Slopes.
Despite his relatively young age, Prof. Wanatowski published 1 book and 62 refereed research papers (including 37 SCI papers) in world-leading international journals, including Géotechnique, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Geotechnical Testing Journal and Acta Geotechnica. Prof. Wanatowski also presented his work at more than 30 international conferences. In the last 10 years, his publications attracted more than 740 citations (current h-index = 15 and i10-index = 20) and resulted in several invitations to present his work at prestigious universities around the world. For example, in between 2010 and 2011, he was offered visiting fellowships and professorships and delivered undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of New South Wales in Australia, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the University of Bologna in Italy. In 2016, he also delivered guest lectures at the University of British Columbia in Canada and Stanford University in the United States.
In the last 10 years, Prof. Wanatowski has been awarded over 3 million Euros of research funding from the European Commission’s Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS). He has led two of them, GEOSOFT (the value of 447,478 Euro), and COGAR (the value of 414,227 Euro) as the Principal Investigator. Collaborative research with colleagues from University of Nottingham and other EU’s institutions resulted in publishing series of technical reports that contributed to improving Health & Safety, management and sustainability of European mines. While working at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (2013-2016) Prof. Wanatowski has been awarded several grants as Co-Investigator, which led to several joint publications with his Chinese colleagues.
Prof. Wanatowski is the Editor-in-Chief of the Geotechnical Research, published by the Institution of Civil Engineers in the United Kingdom. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Chartered Scientist (CSci), Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE) and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in the United Kingdom.