Rafaela Cardoso, PhD

Associate Professor with Habilitation at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon University, Portugal. PhD in Civil Engineering by IST, in 2009 with the thesis Hydro-mechanical Behaviour of Compacted Marls (Manuel Rocha Award 2013) under the supervision of Prof E. Maranha das Neves (IST, Lisbon, Portugal) and Prof E. E. Alonso (UPC, Barcelona, Spain). Advanced MSc in Structural Engineering in 2003 with the thesis Seismic Behaviour of “Pombalino” Old Masonry Buildings (MOP Award 2005) (IST, Lisbon). Habilitation by Lisbon University in 2019 defending the work Micromechanical Analysis of Artificially Cemented Sandy Soils.

Has 26 papers in international ISI/Scopus journals, 4 book chapters in international publications and more than 50 international conference papers (Scopus h_index=13). Invited for 16 lectures (4 national and 12 international). PI of 3 National Research Projects (2 ongoing) and member of several national research projects. Participation in several consultancy projects for companies. Responsible for 6 Advanced Training courses for Portuguese Civil Engineers. Member of the editorial Board of Transportation Geotechnics and of the reviewer board of Engineering Geology, both ISI journals, and of the editorial board of Soils and Rocks. Reviewer for several ISI journals and European projects. Portuguese representative of the Technical Committee TC106 – Unsaturated Soils – of the ISSMFE. Specialist on Geotechnics by the Engineers Professional Association. Supervisor of 7 PhD theses (3 ongoing) and more than 40 MSc theses (3 ongoing).

Main research interests are focused on the Electro-Chemo-Hydro-Mechanical behaviour of clays and structured materials considering their degree of saturation, constitutive modeling of natural and artificially cemented geomaterials considering structure loss caused by stress and suction cycles, soil treatment techniques including biocementation, soil suction measurement (in situ and in the laboratory) and numerical simulation of soil-atmosphere interaction considering the unsaturated behaviour of soils. Very curious on Nanobiotechnology.