International lectures, public engagement, and strategic advisory
I have delivered more than sixty international speeches across five continents - to engineers, executives, policymakers, and investors who need to understand what the ground can do for the challenges they are facing. Most recently at the World Economic Forum, Davos.
My talks combine three decades of frontier research with a direct argument: the underground is not background infrastructure. It is the climate transition's most consequential and least understood resource.
The most underused resource in the fight against climate change is right under our feet. A case for why cities need to look down, not just up.
Every foundation, every tunnel wall, every metro station can generate renewable heat and cooling. The technology exists. What's holding us back?
Not capturing it. Not storing it. Permanently sequestering it at geological scale - the science, the confidence, and why this changes the climate calculus.
How do you design something that must last longer than recorded human history? Deep geological disposal of nuclear waste and what it teaches us about long-term thinking.
The profession's responsibility to the climate challenge - and why geotechnical engineering is the missing piece of the net zero puzzle.
Bacteria have been cementing the ground for billions of years. My lab learned how to harness that. The story of bio-cementation and what it means for construction's carbon footprint.
2022 - present. Candidate for Global Presidency, June 2026, Vienna.
Associated Research Centers for the Urban Underground Space
Elected Member, 2024
Elected Member, 2021
EPFL, Lausanne, 2006 - present
Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment (Elsevier)
Duke; Northwestern; King Abdulaziz; Hohai universities
Founder. Advisory, expertise and training in civil engineering, geothermal energy and geotechnics.
Founder. Geothermal panels. Swiss Top 100: 2023, 2024, 2025.
Co-founder. Bio-cementation for construction.
Spin-offs from LMS research programmes.
Realstone Holding SA; MeduSoil SA; Local Energy SA.
Chair Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)