2024 RILEM Colonnetti medallists

Each year, RILEM assigns up to two Gustavo Colonnetti Medals to researchers under 35 years old who have performed high-level scientific research in the field of construction materials and structures. For this medal, already being a member of the Association is not a requirement.

The medal jury for 2024 was composed of Prof. Enrico Sassoni (University of Bologna, Italy) as TAC Chair, Prof. Alexandra Bertron (INSA Toulouse, France) as Editor-in-Chief of RILEM Technical Letters, Prof. Hassan Baaj (University of Waterloo, Canada) and Prof. Pagona-Noni Maravelaki (Technical University of Crete, Greece) as Experts appointed by TAC.

For the 2024 Gustavo Colonnetti medals, 20 applications from researchers working in 10 countries in 3 different continents were received.

The two 2024 Gustavo Colonnetti medals were awarded to Dr Rob Wolfs and Dr Zhenming Li.

Dr Rob Wolfs is currently an Assistant Professor in the Built Environment department of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), Netherlands. His research mainly aims to develop novel digital technologies to design structures with higher efficiency and lower environmental impact. After obtaining his PhD at TU/e, he spent visiting periods in France and Denmark, which helped him develop a strong international network of collaborations, which include research groups and industrial stakeholders. In light of his expertise in robotics for construction and large-scale 3D printing, documented by several highly cited publications, he has been invited to join the scientific committee of international conferences and to give numerous invited talks and keynote talks in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the USA. Dr. Wolfs also has a strong record of supervision and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students and has been invited to communicate his research to the general public through news articles, TV, and radio programs. Dr. Wolfs has also been very active in RILEM by taking part in several technical committees and contributing to state-of-the-art reports and review papers on concrete 3D printing and related digital fabrication technologies.

Dr Zhenming Li has been a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Sheffield, UK, after receiving his PhD and working for years as a postdoc in Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He will be working in Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen) as Professor from 2024. His research activity mainly focuses on understanding, predicting and mitigating the autogenous shrinkage of alkali-activated materials by combining sophisticated experiments and numerical modeling. The impact of his research is documented by the high number of citations received by his numerous high-quality publications, as well as by the fact that he has been invited to give lectures at several international events. His involvement in RILEM includes his participation in several technical committees, for one of which he also serves as executive secretary, and his activity as a lecturer within a doctoral course organized during an annual RILEM week.