Our management committee comprises elected members, co-opted and appointed members, and ex-officio members representing past committees and our international societies.
Elected Committee Members
Each elected member is voted for by the full NZGS membership, and appointed at our AGM for a two year period.
Chair – Eleni Gkeli
Email: chair@nzgs.org
Eleni is an Engineering Geologist, with 26 years of experience in the geotechnical profession. She has a BSc in Geology, an MSc in Rock Mechanics and Foundation Design and a further MSc in Tunnel Design and Construction. Eleni has experience in a variety of large infrastructure projects in Greece and in New Zealand.
Eleni’s experience in Greece primarily comes from the largest motorway project constructed in Europe in the 2000’s, the 670 km long Egnatia Motorway, where she had the opportunity to be involved in the design and construction of large-scale earthworks and structures such as bridges and tunnels. Eleni has been working in New Zealand since 2012, mainly for WSP (former Opus) and currently for Stantec as a Senior Principal Engineering Geologist and Geotechnical, Pavement and Structures lead in the Wellington office. Eleni has been involved in a variety of infrastructure projects in the transport, water and building sectors across New Zealand, including the design of new highway routes and maintenance of existing road networks, seismic upgrade and maintenance of bridge and tunnel structures, slope design and slope stabilisation works, assessment of slope stability related risk, etc. Eleni has been an elected member of the NZGS Management Committee since 2016 and has been assisting the Society in a variety of roles, mainly associated with training, organising events and the local geotechnical Symposium in 2021. She has also been the Treasurer and vice-Chair of the Society, before taking on the role of the Chair for the 2021 – 2023 term.
Vice-chair and Treasurer – Jen Smith
Email: treasurer@nzgs.org
Jen is a geotechnical engineer based in Auckland, working mainly on projects in the land development and natural hazards sectors. Her recent projects include deep basements and high-rise building development in the Auckland CBD.
After graduating from the University of Manchester, she worked in the UK for 5 years before moving to Auckland in 2017 to join Tonkin & Taylor Ltd. Jen brings her UK experience into her project work with in New Zealand, aiming to share knowledge and provide a different perspective. Jen is a young engineer, committed to supporting recent graduates in the geotechnical field and facilitating their career development. She is also passionate about encouraging diversity and inclusion in the industry, specifically for female engineers and the LGBTQIA community. Jen is a Chartered Member of Engineering New Zealand, and is recognised as a Chartered Engineer by the Institution of Civil Engineers.
Emilia Stocks
Email: EStocks@tonkintaylor.co.nz
Emilia is a chartered geotechnical engineer with over 14 years of experience covering various geotechnical and civil projects in New Zealand, Hong Kong and the UK. She has experience in working on complex problems, especially in the analysis, evaluation and design of liquefaction mitigation options and complex foundations. She also oversees techincal issues investioans and resolution as a Risk Specialist.
Emilia is the training coordinator at NZGS
Richard Justice
Email: rjustice@engeo.co.nz
Richard is a Principal Engineering Geologist at ENGEO, and an expert in geotechnical risk assessment, large-scale landslide investigation, stability assessment and strategic management, engineering geomorphology, rock mechanics with particular respect to slope and tunnel stability, and geotechnics for corridor projects.
Outside of work you will find Richard skiing, biking, boating or fishing.
Ayoub Riman
Email: ariman@engeo.co.nz
Ayoub is a chartered geotechnical engineer (Principal) at ENGEO , based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has 20 years of experience in New Zealand, the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. He specialises in soil-structure interaction, finite element modelling, geotechnical seismic assessment / design and earthquake engineering.
Ayoub is passionate about collaboration and innovation in engineering. He is a steering member of the Technical Excellence Group at ENGEO (NZ, AU and USA). He has been heavily involved in the New Zealand Geotechnical Society since 2014, whether as a branch coordinator (Wellington) or on the NZGS 2020 Conference committee. He has over 10 papers published over the last 7 years in the geotechnical and seismic engineering fields.
Sam Glue
Email: Sam.Glue@beca.com
Sam is a chartered geotechnical engineer with over 16 years experience across the Pacific, New Zealand and Australia and is a team leader with Beca based in Christchurch. He has experience across a wide range of projects from optimising small house developments to major infrastructure projects and specialises in seismic design, soil-structure interaction and finite element/difference analysis for major retaining walls, seawalls, bridge abutments, slope stabilisation and foundations.
Sam is passionate about innovation and advancing the geotechnical industry in New Zealand and has been heavily involved with NZGS since 2015 across branch coordinator, technical development and YGP conference organisation roles. He joined the NZGS management committee in September 2022.
Outside of work Sam enjoys the outdoors with his snowboarding, mountain biking and big walks with his doggos, Bear (Old English Sheepdog) and Thundercub (Boxer/Border Collie cross).
Liam Wotherspoon
Email: l.wotherspoon@auckland.ac.nz
Co-opted Committee Members
From time to time our committee needs support from specialists, and can co-opt these to the committee to fulfil specific roles. These include the lead co-editor of NZ Geomechanics News and the Young Geotechnical Professionals representative.
Helen Loach
Email: ygp@nzgs.org
Nelson based Chartered Professional Geotechnical Engineer with experience in investigation, design, analysis and construction supervision of foundations for a wide range of commercial and civil infrastructure projects. Helen has strong skills in site investigation, ground model development and interpretation, liquefaction analysis and design. Specialising in shallow and deep foundations for bridges and buildings in challenging ground conditions.
Camilla Gibbons
Email: editor@nzgs.org
Camilla is the current co-editor of NZ Geomechanics News. Camilla is a Principal and engineering geologist with Aurecon. She worked in the UK before moving to New Zealand in 2008 “for a year”. The Canterbury earthquakes inspired what has now become her real interest in geohazards and rockfall in particular. Camilla has since enjoyed working on projects combining this with her other interest of improving efficiencies and improving safety by the effective use of digital technology.
Robert Kamuhangire
Email: editor@nzgs.org
Robert is the current co-editor of NZ Geomechanics News. Robert is a principal geotechnical engineer with KGA Geotechnical Group, based in the Christchurch office. He previously worked in the UK predominantly on large infrastructure projects, prior to arriving in New Zealand in 2012 to be part of the Christchurch rebuild.
Jordan Moll
Email: j.moll@babbage.co.nz or website@nzgs.org
Jordan is the Website Manager on the management committee. Jordan is the Geotechnical Engineering Manager at Babbage Consultants Limited in Auckland.
Jonathan Claridge
Email: jonathan.claridge@wsp.com or website@nzgs.org
Jono is the Website Manager on the management committee. Jono works as a Senior Engineering Geologist for WSP in Christchurch.
Appointed Committee Members
The Management Secretary is appointed by the Management Committee to provide administrative support to the committee, and is the first point of contact for enquiries and new members.
Teresa Roetman
Email: secretary@nzgs.org
Teresa is our secretary, coordinator of all our efforts and the main reason we get anything finished. Teresa is based in Auckland and lives up in the Waitakere Ranges
Ex-officio Committee Members
Our past chair stays on the committee as an ex-officio member to mentor their replacement and ensure continuity.
The NZGS committee is also supported by the Australasian Vice Presidents of the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM), the International Society for Engineering Geology and the Environment (IAEG) and the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). Traditionally Australia and New Zealand have taken turns at each of these roles. When the Vice President is Australia based we appoint a local NZ representative to liaise with the VP and to represent the views of the international society at our committee meetings. You can find out more about each of the societies here.
Immediate Past Chair & IAEG NZ liaison – Ross Roberts
Email: ross.c.roberts@gmail.com
Ross is an engineering geologist in Auckland, involved in projects ranging from geohazard studies to geotechnical design, construction and management.
He has twenty years’ experience in the management, planning and supervision of geotechnical and civil engineering projects, including leading teams of up to 20 engineers and managing multi-year consulting projects. He has worked for consultants and contractors in the UK, Indonesia, Australia and NZ on projects including major highway construction, railway asset management, water pipeline scheme assessments, landslide assessment and remediation, microtunneling and bridge foundation design and now works for Auckland Council as their in-house geotechnical specialist and Head of Engineering Resilience.
ISSMGE NZ Liaison – Rolando Orense
Email: r.orense@auckland.ac.nz
Rolly is a Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, and currently the Deputy Head of Department (Academic).
He received his BSCE (cum laude) and MSCE degrees from the University of the Philippines and a Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Tokyo (Japan). Before joining the University of Auckland in 2007, he also served as an Instructor at the University of the Philippines and as an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo and Yamaguchi University (Japan). Moreover, while working with top-notched geotechnical consulting firms in Tokyo and Manila, he worked on a variety of complex soil engineering projects in Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines.
He is a registered professional engineer in the Philippines and in Oregon (United States) and a Chartered Member of Engineering NZ.
ISRM Australasian Vice President – Paul Horrey
Email: paul.horrey@beca.com
Paul is an engineering geology and rock mechanics specialist with 30 years of experience working predominantly in professional services consultancy. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (Geotechnical) with the Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand, and a Chartered Geologist with the Geological Society of London.
Regular Guests
Some non-voting members may be invited to our committee meetings where appropriate, including the second NZ Geomechanics News co-editor
Don MacFarlane
Email: editor@nzgs.org
Don Macfarlane has worked as an applied engineering geologist for nearly 40 years and has accumulated some knowledge, a fair bit of wisdom and a few brickbats along the way. He is the current co-editor of NZ Geomechanics News.
His real interest is dams and associated issues (seismic hazard, slope instability) but any good geohazard affecting an engineering structure will do. These days he is a Technical Director with AECOM in Christchurch.