DSCS 2025

Ahmad Mhanna

ACI AMBASSADOR SPEAKER

Middle East and North Africa Regional Director

American Concrete Institute

In a nutshell
Ahmad Mhanna, MS Civil Engineer, is the ACI Middle East and North Africa Regional Director.

Mhanna received his Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Jordan and an MS in Emerging Technologies for Construction from the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. He also obtained an Infrastructure Renewal Engineering Certificate from the University of Missouri-Rolla, MO, USA. Mhanna holds multiple ACI certifications and has served as an ACI Certification examiner.

Mhanna has wide-ranging experience in concrete and construction materials testing, analysis, and applications. He has been involved in product development, construction chemicals production quality control, cement and concrete research projects, inspection, and technical support while serving in different positions in the construction industry for 18 years.

Brian L. Wheeler

ACI AMBASSADOR SPEAKER

Managing Director, Communications and Marketing

American Concrete Institute

In a nutshell
Based in Rochester, Michigan, USA, Brian Wheeler joined the American Concrete Institute in March 2025 as managing director, Communications and Marketing. Wheeler is a business development, marketing, and communications professional with more than 15 years of experience across various end-markets and geographies. His professional responsibilities have included global marketing operations, brand management, market intelligence, internal and external communication strategy development and implementation, product management, customer relationship management, and direct P&L objectives.

Before his previous role as Global Marketing Communications and Strategic Intelligence Leader at global coatings supplier PPG, Brian supported the automotive industry as a consulting executive for professional services firm Deloitte. 

Wheeler has led and implemented strategic marketing and communications campaigns in more than 25 countries, driving growth throughout the businesses he’s worked for. 

Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Eddie KOENDERS 

Full Professor and Director of the Institute of Construction and Building Materials

Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Technical University of Darmstadt

In a nutshell
Prof. Eddie KOENDERS is a Full Professor and Director of the Institute of Construction and Building Materials at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Technical University of Darmstadt. His research fields are Building Materials, Building Physics and Building Chemistry and research interests are sustainability, energy efficiency and life-cycle performance of construction materials with an experimental and multiscale modelling research approach.

He coauthored about 200 Journal papers and is leading various national, international, European and DFG research projects, and is coordinator of the national DFG Priority Programme SPP 2436 on Net-Zero Concrete. He is a RILEM TAC Expert, and Coordinator of the annual RILEM EAC Course on Computational Methods for Building Physics and Construction Materials.

Jian-Guo Dai

Head & Chair Professor of Structural Engineering
FIIFC, FHKIE, FHKCI, FIAAM, FACF

Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong (CityU)

In a nutshell
Prof. Dai is Head & Chair Professor of Structural Engineering at the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong (CityU). Prior to joining CityU in 2024, he was a full professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he joined as assistant professor in 2008 and was promoted to associate professor and professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2013 and 2018, respectively. He also had 8 years of research and industry experience in Japan.

Professor Dai’s research theme is “Emerging Material and Structural Systems for Sustainable Concrete Infrastructures”. His research has been recognized by many academic awards, such as the “Best Basic Research Paper Award” of the Journal of Civil Engineering Composites of ASCE, the “Outstanding International Collaboration Award” of JSCE, the “Structural Excellence R&D Award” of HKIE, the “Second Prize of the Chinese National Technology Invention Award” and “The 1st Class China Award for Science and Technology in Construction”.

Professor Dai is also a startup co-founder and received a Gold Medal in the special edition of the Geneva Inventions Expo 2022. His research on multifunctional coatings for buildings and concrete structures was highlighted by “Science” in its Editor’s choice and widely reported by public media.Professor Dai is a Fellow of the International Institution of FRP in Construction (IIFC), Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE), Hong Kong Concrete Institute (HKCI), the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM), and Asian Concrete Federation (ACF). He has contributed actively to international organizations like ISO, IIFC, and Asian Concrete Federation. He was the vice president of IIFC and Technical Board Chair of ACF, and currently is the Vice President of ACF and Committee Manager of ISO/TC71 SC6 on “Non-traditional reinforcing materials for concrete structures”.

He has been serving several international journals (Journal of Composites for Construction, Composites Communications, Engineering Structures, Construction and Building Materials, Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering etc.) in the capacity of Associate Editor, Guest Editor or Editorial Board Member. Prof. Dai has been continuously selected for the “Top 2% of Scientists in the World—Stanford University Release List” and the “Global Scholars Academic Influence Civil Subject Ranking Release List” in the Civil Engineering Discipline.

He was also on the list of “Highly Ranked Scholars (Top 0.05%) – Prior 5 Years” by ScholarGPS in the years 2022, 2023 and 2024. He has published more than 350 technical papers (including 286 SCI papers), which have attracted more than 20,600 citations (Google), and has an h-index of 79. 

COSTANTINO MENNA

Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Structural Engineering

Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture
University of Naples Federico II

In a nutshell
Costantino Menna is Associate Professor in Structural Engineering at the University of Naples Federico II (Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture). His research focuses on the mechanics of innovative materials, structural durability, additive manufacturing in the construction sector, and environmental sustainability evaluation through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). He has conducted research at institutions including Penn State University (USA), École Polytechnique (Paris), and École Polytechnique de Montréal (Canada). He has authored over 50 scientific papers and holds 10 patents on innovative materials and structural systems.

Prof. Menna’s work emphasizes the integration of life cycle environmental performance as foundational principles of sustainable structural design. His research also spans advanced construction technologies such as 3D concrete printing (3DCP), including the design and realization of the first 3D-printed earthquake-resistant structure in Italy, approved by local authorities and installed within a collaboration with Enel Green Power. 

Prof. Menna leads the fib Special Activity Group on Sustainability (TG.SAG.1 – fib Database) and convenes the fib Task Group 2.11 on Digital Fabrication of Structures. He is a member of Working Group 15 of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering and co-authored the ReLUIS national guidelines on methodological frameworks for integrated seismic and energy retrofitting. He is involved in several national and European research projects focusing on integrated retrofit strategies and sustainability assessment.

In 2021, he was appointed as an external expert for the European Parliament’s pilot project on seismic and energy upgrading, managed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

In 2024, he was listed in the Stanford–Elsevier ranking of the world’s top scientists.