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Engaging Audiences Worldwide

Making the invisible underground compelling

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.

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Prof. Lyesse Laloui speaking at 9ICEG 2023
Speaking Topics

What I speak about

01

The Ground Beneath Our Cities

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.

02

Turning Buildings into Power Plants

Every foundation, every tunnel wall, every metro station can generate renewable heat and cooling. The technology exists. What's holding us back?

03

Burying Carbon for Good

Not capturing it. Not storing it. Permanently sequestering it at geological scale - the science, the confidence, and why this changes the climate calculus.

04

Engineering Certainty Over Millennia

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.

05

The Future of Sustainable Infrastructure

The profession's responsibility to the climate challenge - and why geotechnical engineering is the missing piece of the net zero puzzle.

06

Nature as Engineer

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.

Advisory

Advisory roles & affiliations

Current

ISSMGE - Vice President for Europe

2022 - present. Candidate for Global Presidency, June 2026, Vienna.

ACUUS - Director for Europe

Associated Research Centers for the Urban Underground Space

Academia Europaea

Elected Member, 2024

Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences

Elected Member, 2021

Academic

Chair Professor & Director, LMS

EPFL, Lausanne, 2006 - present

Founder & Honorary Editor-in-Chief

Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment (Elsevier)

Visiting Professorships

Duke; Northwestern; King Abdulaziz; Hohai universities

Entrepreneurial

Laloui Consulting

Founder. Advisory, expertise and training in civil engineering, geothermal energy and geotechnics.

Enerdrape

Founder. Geothermal panels. Swiss Top 100: 2023, 2024, 2025.

MeduSoil

Co-founder. Bio-cementation for construction.

GeoEG, GeoG, InSituMetrix

Spin-offs from LMS research programmes.

Board Director

Realstone Holding SA; MeduSoil SA; Local Energy SA.

Selected Engagements

Selected lectures & appearances

2026World Economic Forum, Davos
2026Interpore Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Lectureship
2025DFI John Mitchell Lecture, Bruges
2025Geotech Asia, Goa, India
2025Prague Geotechnical Honorary Lecture, Prague
2025British Geotechnical Association Annual Meeting, London
2024ECSMGE, Lisbon, Portugal
2024Károly Széchy Memorial Lecture, Budapest
2024International Geotechnical Innovation Conference, Dubai
20239ICEG, Chania, Greece
202317th Asian Regional Conference, Astana, Kazakhstan
2022Vienna Terzaghi Lecture
2022Northwestern Sustainability Summit, Chicago
2021Rent Fair, Geneva - Swiss Real Estate & Sustainable Energy
2020ASCE Kersten Lecture, Minneapolis
20204th European Conference on Unsaturated Soils, Lisbon
Prof. Lyesse Laloui speaking at ICSMGE
Prof. Lyesse Laloui

Chair Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)

Contact

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