Rate My Professor Sela Akdag

Dr. Sela Akdag serves as a Lecturer in Mining Engineering at the Western Australian School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering (WASM: MECE), Curtin University, located on the Kalgoorlie Campus. He obtained his PhD in 2019 from the University of Adelaide as part of an ARC-LP project, earning the Dean’s Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence. Prior to joining Curtin University, Akdag held several postdoctoral research positions, including at the Australian Centre for Geomechanics, University of Western Australia, where he contributed to a strain burst project funded by the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia (MRIWA); at the University of Adelaide in 2020 on an ACARP-funded coal burst project; and at the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, UNSW Sydney, on a CRC-P ground support reinforcement project.

Akdag's research focuses on rock mechanics, fracture mechanics, experimental and computational geomechanics, in-situ stress measurement, rock and coal burst mechanisms, ground control engineering, and rock dynamics for sustainable mining. His influential publications include 'Effects of thermal damage on strain burst mechanism for brittle rocks under true-triaxial loading conditions' (Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, 2018), 'Evaluation of the propensity of strain burst in brittle granite based on post-peak energy analysis' (Underground Space, 2021), 'Dynamic response and fracture characteristics of thermally-treated granite under dynamic loading' (International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, 2023), 'Strain burst vulnerability criterion based on energy-release rate' (Engineering Fracture Mechanics, 2020), and 'Experimental Investigation of Burst Failure Mechanism Under True Triaxial Unloading Conditions' (Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, 2025). He has received the Outstanding Youth Editorial Board Member Award 2023-2024 from the Journal of Geohazard Mechanics and the Excellent Reviewer Award 2023 from the Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. Akdag serves on the editorial board of the Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, acts as guest editor for the special issue 'From Mining and Mine Tailings to Waste Recycling' in Sustainability, and holds committee roles including Kalgoorlie Representative for the EMCR Steering Committee at Curtin University and membership in the Society of Mining Professors.