Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Asal Bidarmaghz is a Senior Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW Sydney.

Asal's expertise is in Energy Geotechnics and Underground Climate Change including design and optimisation of energy geostructures, hydro-thermo-mechanical characteristics of urban subsurface and underground structures synergistically with above/underground built environment. 

Her research concerns large-scale simulation of urban underground heat island and the quantification of its consequent geotechnical, environmental, and hydrological impacts with specific emphasis on sustainable and resilient utilisation of underground structures and geo-energy resources. 

Asal's research has led to new urban-scale methods and tools for predicting the ground temperature and groundwater distributions at high resolutions in the presence of underground heat sources and sinks. 

read more here: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/only-way-down-why-underground-urban-development-rise

Education and Employment

• Senior Lecturer, UNSW, Australia (2022)
• Lecturer, UNSW, Australia (2019)
• Research Associate, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (2017)
• Research Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia (2015)
• PhD, University of Melbourne, Australia (2015)
• MSc, University of Tehran, Iran (2008)
• BSc, University of Tehran, Iran (2005)

Teaching

CVEN4202 Advanced Topics in Geotechnical Engineering 

CVEN4204 Ground Improvement Techniques 

Research Interests and Supervision

Asal currently leads UNSW's Energy Geotechnics research group comprising of 4 PhD and 2 MSc students.

Asal's research team conducts experimental, numerical, and fundamental studies in underground climate change, energy geostructures, energy geotechnics, thermally induced phenomena in saturated and unsaturated soils and their impact on sustainability of underground spaces and energy resources.

Asal's team has the capacity for 1-2 more passionate, enthusiastic PhD students to work on fundamental and applied studies in the field of energy geotechnics and underground climate change. Please email your CV if interested.

Service Roles and Professional Organisations/Affiliations

• Chair of the UNSW Engineering Faculty Staff Gender Equity and Diversity Working Group
• ISSMGE, TC 308 lead for Underground Climate Task Force
• Australasia Renewable Earth Energy Association (AREAA), Secretary 
• Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS) Sydney, Immediate Past Deputy Chair
• Exec Committee Member of UNSW Women in Research Network (WiRN)
• UNSW Australian Human Rights Institute Associate

Editorial Boards

Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology – Guest Editor

Awards

• The Outstanding Paper Award, Elsevier's Journal of Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment (2022)
• The Most Cited Paper Award, Elsevier's Journal of Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment (2019)
• The Best Research and Practice Paper Award, the ICE Environmental Geotechnics Journal (2016)
• The Best Paper Award, International Australia New Zealand Conference on Geomechanics (ANZ) (2012)

Expertise

Dr Bidarmaghz has expertise in the areas of shallow/deep geothermal systems design and optimisation, underground thermal mapping, hydro-thermo-mechanical modelling of shallow subsurface, energy geostructures, e.g., energy tunnels design, modelling and optimisation, understanding and quantification of subsurface heat island effect, large-scale modelling of geothermal potential in cities with emphasis on the interplay between underground structures and the surrounding saturated/unsaturated ground.