Dr. Carthigesu Gnanendran serves as Honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering and Information Technology at UNSW Canberra (Australian Defence Force Academy), University of New South Wales. He joined UNSW in 2001 as Lecturer, advancing to Senior Lecturer, following three years as Assistant Professor at the University of New Brunswick, Canada, where he taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses and supervised B.Eng. and M.Eng. projects. Prior to academia, he worked over eight years as Engineer and then Senior Engineer with multinational consulting and construction companies, gaining extensive experience in designing and constructing structural and geotechnical engineering projects. At UNSW, he teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and supervises M.E. and Ph.D. projects. His research expertise encompasses theoretical and experimental studies in geotechnical and pavement engineering. Active areas include reinforced soil systems with geosynthetics and fibers, embankments on soft soils, characterization of unbound and stabilized pavement materials—including recycled aggregates from waste—subjected to cyclic loading tests for resilient modulus, fatigue, and permanent deformation, stabilization techniques, and numerical modeling using finite element method (FEM) and finite difference method (FDM). Additional focuses are soft soil engineering, such as visco-plastic modeling for predicting long-term embankment performance, stabilization with prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs), vacuum preloading, electro-osmotic consolidation, and soil-structure interaction problems.

Gnanendran has contributed substantially to the field through extensive publications. He co-authored the textbook Civil Engineering Materials (2016) with N. Sivakugan, R. Tuladhar, and M.B. Kannan. Key book chapters include 'Canadian case histories of embankments on soft soils and stabilization with geosynthetics' (2015) with A. Valsangkar and R. Kerry Rowe, and 'Prediction of Embankments’ Time-Dependent Behavior on Soft Soils' (2015) with M.N. Islam and S.T. Sivakumar. Prominent journal articles feature 'Physical, geotechnical and biochemical behaviours of municipal solid waste in field and laboratory bioreactors' (2023, with Y. Xie, J. Xue, K. Xie), 'Interpretation of Cone Penetration Test Data of an Embankment for Coupled Numerical Modeling' (2022, with M.N. Islam, S.T. Sivakumar), 'Non-associated flow rule-based elasto-viscoplastic model for clay' (2020, with M. Islam), 'Finite element simulations of an elasto-viscoplastic model for clay' (2019, with M.N. Islam, M. Massoudi), and 'Elastic-viscoplastic model for clays: Development, validation, and application' (2017, with M.N. Islam). Earlier works cover slope stability, interface failure in geosynthetics pullout tests (2001), and pavement model testing (2011-2016). His research addresses innovative solutions for soft soil challenges and sustainable pavement construction using recycled materials.

Professional Email: r.gnanendran@adfa.edu.au