Rate My Professor Klaus Thoeni

Associate Professor Klaus Thoeni is Associate Dean Research (Industry Engagement) in the School of Engineering (Civil Engineering) at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and a member of the Priority Research Centre for Geotechnical Science and Engineering within the College of Engineering, Science and Environment. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering awarded in September 2009 and a Master's degree in Civil Engineering from Graz University of Technology, Austria. During his doctoral studies, he served as a full-time research and teaching assistant at the Institute for Structural Analysis there, teaching structural analysis, statics, dynamics, numerical methods including FEM and BEM, and supervising bachelor and master projects. He contributed to European projects such as TunConstruct, focusing on Boundary Element Method applications to anisotropic materials, piezoelectricity, and non-linear problems, and SeRoN for critical infrastructure classification. Thoeni joined the University of Newcastle in July 2010 as a Research Associate, working on industry-funded projects, and has progressed to his current roles. Earlier, he was an ELBENet Research Fellow at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Thoeni's research centers on advanced numerical methods—Boundary Element Method, Finite Element Method, and Discrete Element Method—applied to underground excavations, rock mechanics, geomechanics, mining, and rockfall protection systems. He participates in the YADE open-source software development for Discrete Element Method simulations of geomaterial dynamics and previously developed BEFE++ for underground excavation analysis. His interests extend to photogrammetry, programming, parallel processing, and machine learning. He has supervised 10 PhD completions and secured over $6 million in grants from the Australian Research Council and industry sources like Glencore and Australian Coal Research Limited. Awards include the Industry Engagement Excellence Award (2021), Excellence Award for Research Supervision (2020), Outstanding Research Award (2017), IACMAG Excellent Paper Award (2014), SIMNET Styria Geotechnics Research Award (2010), and Amann Award (2003). Key publications are 'Qualitative rockfall hazard assessment: a comprehensive review of current practices' (Ferrari, Giacomini, Thoeni, 2016), 'A 3D discrete element modelling approach for rockfall analysis with drapery systems' (Thoeni et al., 2014), 'Yade Documentation' (Smilauer et al., 2015), and 'Discrete modelling of hexagonal wire meshes with a stochastically distorted contact model' (Thoeni et al., 2013). His contributions advance geotechnical hazard management and infrastructure protection.