Session Speakers 2026
Session 4
João Martins – ArcelorMittal
João Martins is a civil engineer specialised in geotechnics, with a Master’s degree from the University of Liège in Belgium. He started his professional career in a technical inspection office in Luxembourg in 1996 and moved to ARBED (now ArcelorMittal) in 1999. He spent a few years in the technical department of the sheet piling department assisting customers with designs, worked a few years in the US as an expat, and returned to Luxembourg to lead the technical and marketing department. His main task in the last years has been to promote sustainable steel sheet pile solutions. In collaboration with the R&D departments and external experts, he led several life cycle assessments of sheet pile structures and was involved in the elaboration of Environmental Product Declarations.
Session 4
Sakshi Singh – ABT B.V.
Sakshi Singh is a Concrete Specialist at ABT B.V., with her expertise in sustainable materials. During her studies she worked with Groningen Gemeente to develop alkali-activated concrete for the quay walls, this motivated her to work towards sustainable construction. Now at ABT, she focuses not only on materials but on optimizing the entire construction lifecycle from raw material to end-of-life and also recycling of material.
Session 1
Maurice Bottiau – Franki Foundations
Maurice is:
President of the Deep Foundations Institute Europe, and past Trustee of the DFI.
Immediate past-Chairman of the Belgian Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.
Chairman of ETC3 of the ISSMGE: European Technical Committee 3 on Deep Foundations, since 2006.
Past-President of the European Federation of Foundation Contractors (EFFC), period 2009-2011.
Past-President of the Belgian Federation of Foundation Contractors (ABEF) period 2007-2011.
Author of more than 50 papers, lectures and keynotes on Foundation Engineering.
More than 30 years of experience in the Design and execution of piling, diaphragm walls and soil improvement.
Session 1
Marcel Bielefeld – Allnamics Geotechnical & Pile Testing Experts
Marcel Bielefeld is managing partner of Allnamics Geotechnical & Pile Testing Experts, where he covers projects worldwide. Educated at the universities of Delft and Rotterdam, Bielefeld started his working carrier in the development of pile testing methods and equipment at TNO Building and Construction Research in The Netherlands.
With the later experience of being the director of a foundation consultancy and a foundation contractor, as well as managing director of a precast concrete production firm, Bielefeld joined Allnamics, working as an independent all-round geotechnical consultant with special knowledge about pile testing and monitoring.
Bielefeld is the author of many technical papers regarding pile testing methods, and the inspection and re-use of existing foundations. Bielefeld is a member of the DFI Testing and Evaluation Committee and Chairman of the 11th International Conference on Stress Wave Theory and Design and Testing Methods for Deep Foundations.
Session1 & 2
Anastasia Poliacik – WSP Canada
Anastasia Poliacik is a Senior Geotechnical Engineer with WSP Canada. She has 16 years of consulting experience working on a variety of transportation and infrastructure projects throughout Ontario, Canada. Her project experience includes preliminary and detail design of various foundation elements associated with bridge rehabilitation and reconstruction, road widening and highway interchange reconstruction.
Session 3
Ingo Hylla – Hylla
Dr. Hylla claims to save as much CO2 every day as a car with a combustion engine would emit if it drove around the world once.
He studied and earned his doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin and has held different positions relevant to the construction
industry during his career. He has been running his own engineering and software development office for 10 years.
Session 3
Freddy Lopez – Tiroler Rohre GmbH
Freddy Lopez is Bolivian geotechnical Engineer of Tiroler Rohre GmbH in Austria. He describes himself as a micropile enthusiast and as such, he is also member of the Steering Committee of the International Society of Micropiles (ISM).
Session 3
Sayed Sayed – GCI INC.
Dr. Sayed is experienced in design and analysis of foundations, use of NDT methods, and 3D modeling and analysis of Soil-Structure Systems. Since 1993, he has served as Chief Engineer of GCI’s contracts for the FDOT Bridge Scour Program in Districts 1, 2, 5 and 7. He has performed hundreds of Geo-Structural Phase III evaluations for Known and Unknown Foundation bridges and been instrumental in development of substructure load rating methodology. He was a key contributor in the development of the Integrated Bridge Loading Rating (IBLR) methodology which accounts for soil-substructure interaction and is now actively promoting its application to modeling the effects of truck platooning on bridges.
Session 3
Charles Bernuy – SETEC group
Charles Bernuy is a civil engineer graduated from Ecole Centrale Nantes and the University of Stuttgart. He began his career in Germany, working for several years as a geotechnical consultant on major international projects. In 2011, he joined Terrasol, part of the Setec Group, a leading geotechnical consultancy now counting more than one hundred specialized engineers.
With nearly twenty years of experience in the design and construction supervision of foundations, retaining structures and slope stability works, Charles has developed a strong expertise on complex geotechnical challenges.
For the past three years, he has been Director of Terrasol’s Lyon agency, overseeing strategic projects and multidisciplinary teams.
He also leads company-wide initiatives on structural sobriety and resilience, promoting more efficient, responsible and adaptive engineering approaches within the built environment.
Session 2
Hamed Layssi – FPrimeC Solutions Inc.
Dr. Hamed Layssi is a registered professional engineer in Ontario and British Columbia (Canada) and a managing director at FPrimeC Solutions Inc. in Richmond Hill, ON, Canada.
Dr. Layssi has extensive experience in the non-destructive testing and evaluation of structures and foundations.Over the past few years, he has been heavily involved with non-destructive testing and evaluation of existing and new foundations.
Mr. Layssi holds a PhD from McGill University and is voting member of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) committee 228 on Nondestructive Testing of Concrete, and the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) Testing and Evaluation Committee and Foundation Reuse committee.
Session 2
Rune Tranborg Tuxen – DMT Engineers
Rune Tranborg Tuxen is the Managing Director of DMT Engineers in Denmark, a company rooted in
pile load testing and structural monitoring.
He comes from an educational background in electrical engineering with a specialization in acoustics and technical physics. Rune has worked in civil engineering since 2002, within entities owned by the Danish construction company Per Aarsleff. His work has been focused on pile load testing and structural monitoring, and experience ranges from testing and monitoring installation of large offshore wind farms to small onefamily
houses.
In his current role, Rune is responsible for developing national business and strengthening
collaboration with sister companies in Poland and Germany, while also working to expand activities in Northern Europe. Rune is a member of the Danish Pile Committee under the Danish Geotechnical Association and has
a professional interest in improving engineering judgement through increased use of data analysis from testing and monitoring.
Session 2
René Terpstra – Municipality of Amsterdam
René Terpstra has been working as a civil engineer for the Municipality of Amsterdam for almost 30 years. Over the past 10 years, he did research into the bearing capacity of bacterially degraded piles under bridges.
Session 1
Paulien Neppelenbroek – De Bouwdirigent
Paulien Neppelenbroek is a project manager specialized in foundation restoration, the founder of De Bouwdirigent.
After many years working for major contractors on municipal renovation projects, she gained extensive experience dealing with complex challenges in cost and contract management within large-scale renovation projects.
When she bought an old building herself and there was told the foundation would need to be completely replaced, she figured :there must be another way.
By bringing together experts, she developed an alternative approach that not only significantly reduced costs, but also increased the value of the building.
This experience led her to found De Bouwdirigent. Through this company, she organized and guide foundation restoration projects for housing corporations, collectives, and private owners. Her approach focuses on clear planning, clear agreements between stakeholders, and smart design choices that reduce costs while increasing real estate value.
Session 4
Dr. Hamidou H. TAMBOURA – GIKEN LTD
Dr. Hamidou H. TAMBOURA is a geotechnical researcher at the R&D Center of GIKEN LTD. His work focuses on foundation engineering, press-in piling technology, and sustainable construction methods. He is involved in research on the behavior and performance of steel sheet piles and tubular piles installed by press-in methods, with particular interest in low-impact and low-carbon foundation solutions for urban environments.
Session 2
Geeralt van den Ham – Municipality of Amsterdam
Geeralt van den Ham, who will give the presentation, worked as a senior geotechnical expert at Deltares and is now head of the team innovation for the Program Bridges and Quay Walls for the Municipality of Amsterdam.
Session 2
Rob Brinkman – Deltares
Product owner and lead developer of the Probabilistic Toolkit, a generic reliability and risk management software suite for Deltares and Dutch water boards, incorporating and extending state-of-the-art probabilistic techniques.
Session 4
Mario Terceros – Geoexpand
-Civil Engineer degree, 1983 (Córdoba, Argentina)
-MSc Degree in geotechnical engineering, 1985 (Madrid, Spain)
-Professional Engineer, Bolivia, 1985
-CTO and Executive Director: INCOTE S.A. since 1985
-Responsible for +1.500 projects
-Developer of Expander Body (improvements) and Smart Cell (inventor)
-President of Bolivian Geotechnical Society
-Executive director of EBP (Panama), CEO Incotec Peru, CTO EBI (Canada), EBB (Brasil), CEO GeoExpand
-Postgraduate professor UPSA, Bolivia
Session 4
Marc Timmerman – Van den Heuvel Werkendam
Marc Timmerman (55) is owner of the family company L. Timmerman en Zn. B.V., founded in 1919, and since 2009 also owner of Van den Heuvel, a company with more than 75 years of experience in the foundation equipment industry.
With a strong background in foundation equipment and industry experience, Marc has been actively driving innovation and sustainability within the sector. Under his leadership, Van den Heuvel has positioned itself as a specialist in retrofitting existing machinery to more sustainable solutions.
In 2021, Van den Heuvel successfully retrofitted the first Sennebogen 653 to a fully electric battery-powered machine. Following this milestone, numerous retrofitting projects have been realized, ranging from fully electric and hybrid solutions to alternative power systems such as hydrogen.
Marc is passionate about extending the lifespan of heavy equipment while significantly reducing emissions, helping clients transition towards more sustainable operations without compromising performance.