Lyesse Laloui

Lyesse Laloui, (born 1963) is a Swiss engineer and Professor at EPFL, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.  He is Chair full Professor of Soil Mechanics, Geo-Engineering and Storage at EPFL's School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering and is the Director of the Soil Mechanics Laboratory

Laloui is active in the fields of geomechanics, sustainability and geo-energy. His work explores the multiphysical behaviour of energy geostructures, sustainable soil stabilisation, the behaviour of shales, radioactive waste disposal and carbon capture and storage. His efforts have led to publication of 13 books, over 370 journal publications and four patents.

Recognized as one of the world's top ranked scientists in field of Engineering and Technology, Laloui is the current vice-president for Europe of the ISSMGE, the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering and Editor in Chief of the Elsevier journal, Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment. A full member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, Director of ACUUS, the Associated Research Centers for the Urban Underground Space and recent recipient of two Doctorate Honoris Causae in Engineering from Heriot-Watt University, and from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, he is also the founding partner of the International Joint Research Center for Energy Geotechnics in China and has co-founded several start-ups including Geoeg, Medusoil, Nesol and Enerdrape. Since 2017 Lyesse Laloui acts as an ambassador of Lausanne Montreux Congress (LMC) which brings together the experts from the economic region of Lausanne and Montreux. In 2024 he was elected to the Academia Europaea.

Career
Laloui studied civil engineering at Ecole Nationale des Travaux Publics, Algiers in 1987 before moving to France, where he obtained an Advanced Master in Soil and Structural Mechanics from Ecole Centrale Paris in 1989. In 1993 he completed his PhD  titled: "Modelisation du comportement thermo–hydro–mecanique des milieux poreux anelastique "with honours: "Summa cum laude".

Joining EPFL in 1994 as a Research Fellow, he became a professor in 2006. In the years 1999-2001 he acted as a president of the EPFL Assembly and a member of the ETH-Rat Board. In 2008 he and was appointed the head of the Soil Mechanics Laboratory (EPFL). In 2012 he was appointed as the director of EPFL Civil Engineering Section and in 2014 became a member of the Direction of the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC) of EPFL.

In 2014 Lyesse Laloui established and became the editor-in-chief of the international journal Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment at the Elsevier publishing house. He created the Chair "Gaz Naturel" - Petrosvibri –dedicated to underground Carbon dioxide sequestration and is a Honorary Director of the International Joint Research Center for Energy Geotechnics in Nanjing, China. In 2021, Lyesse Laloui was appointed as the European Vice President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). Between 2007 and 2020 he was adjunct professor at the Pratt School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University. and advisory professor at Hohai University. between 2016 and 2019. Laloui acts as a chairman of advisory committee for the XVIII European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering in 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Laloui has collaborated or supervised numerous researchers including:


 * Dr. Mathieu Nuth, Assistant Professor at University of Sherbrooke,
 * Dr. Bertrand François, Assistant Professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles,
 * Dr. Alice Di Donna, Assistant Professor at University Grenoble-Alpes,
 * Dr. Yafei Qiao, Assistant Professor at Tongji University,
 * Dr Roman Makhnenko, Assistant Professor University of Illinois,
 * Dr. Anne-Catherine Dieudonné, Assistant Professor of Engineering Geology at Delft University of Technology,
 * Dr. Melis Sutman, Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt University and
 * Dr. Alessandro Rotta Loria, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Northwestern University.

Awards and honors
Honorary lectures
 * Doctorat Honouris Causa in Engineering, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 2022
 * Doctorat Honouris Causa in Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, 2022
 * ERC Proof of Concept Grant (PoC), Construction & Environmental Biocementation in Real World Applications (CEBREWA ), 2020
 * ERC Advanced Grant, Biogeos, 2018
 * 30th Roberval Award in for the book "Mécanique des sols et Roches"
 * RM Quigley Award from the Canadian Geotechnical Society, 2016
 * "Excellent Contributions Award" of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics, 2008
 * Széchy Lecture, 2024 (The highest award of the Hungarian Geotechnical Society)
 * Eshbach Lecture, 2022.
 * Vienna Terzaghi Lecture, 2021
 * Kersten Lecture at the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE), Geo-congress, 2020
 * 12th G.A. Leonards Lecture from the University of Purdue, 2014
 * Vardoulakis Lecture from the University of Minnesota, 2012

Selected works