Teaching
- NCEC101 - Building Materials and Building Construction (2026-27, I)
- NCEA201 - Computational Methods in Civil Engineering (2026-27, I)
Designation: Assistant Professor
Department: Civil Engineering
Email: gowtham[at]iitism[dot]ac[dot]in
Contact Number: 0000000000
Personal Page: Click Here
About Me: Dr Gowtham is a civil engineering researcher specialising in underground structures and geotechnical earthquake engineering. His work focuses on the seismic stability of underground structures, advanced numerical modelling, and data-driven approaches for predicting soil collapse. He is also interested in developing geotechnical resilience frameworks for offshore wind foundations, with emphasis on coupled seismic and environmental loading. His research contributes to various UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13. More details of my research group (INSpIRE) here: https://sites.google.com/view/gowthamg/
Research Interest: Underground structures; Geotechnical earthquake engineering; Computational geomechanics; Constitutive modelling of soils and rocks.
MTech + PhD in Civil Engineering (2019 - 2025)
Geotechnical Engineering Specialisation
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
CGPA: 9.75/10
PhD Thesis: Seismic stability analysis of circular tunnels in soils under harmonic excitation
MTech Dissertation: Stability of rectangular tunnels under pseudo-static earthquake loadings
Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in Civil Engineering (2015 - 2019)
PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Affiliated to Anna University, Tamil Nadu
UG Project: Traffic planning and site selection for ring road for Coimbatore city using GIS and AHP
Assistant Professor (2026 - till date)
Department of Civil Engineering, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad
FARE Postdoctoral Researcher (2024 - 2025)
Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kanpur
2026 - MSCA Seal of Excellence
Received the "Seal of Excellence" from the European Commission for a high-scoring (95%) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship (Host: University of Nottingham, UK)
2025 - Outstanding PhD Thesis Award
Received the Outstanding PhD Thesis Award, selected from all graduating doctoral students in the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kanpur.
2019 - Gold Medal
Received the Gold Medal for ranking first in the B.E. Civil Engineering program (2015–2019 batch) from PSG College of Technology.
Gowtham, G. and Sahoo, J.P. (2026), Discussion on “Seismic Bearing Capacity of Strip Footing on Excavations Considering Soil Strength Anisotropy Using Modified Pseudo-Dynamic and Pseudo-Static Approaches” by Shabnam Shirazizadeh, Amin Keshavarz, Majid Beygi, Mohammad Saberian, Jie Li, and Ramin Vali, International Journal of Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics 2024, 0:1–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/nag.70223 [Link (read-only)]
Gowtham, G. and Sahoo, J.P. (2026). Significance of Primary Waves on the Seismic Stability of Underground Tunnels: A Numerical Perspective. International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, 50(5). 2516–2539. https://doi.org/10.1002/nag.70235 [Link (read-only)]
Gowtham, G., and Sahoo, J.P. (2026). Pseudo-Static vs Pseudo-Dynamic Methods: A General Comparison and Their Application to Underground Tunnel Stability. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2025.109888 [Link to file]
Gowtham, G., and Sahoo, J.P. (2025). Effect of seismic body wave propagation on the stability of piggyback twin circular tunnels. Journal of Earthquake Engineering. 29(10). 2175–2191. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632469.2025.2515444 [Link to file]
Gowtham, G., and Sahoo, J.P. (2025). Seismic active earth pressure of granular soils considering inhomogeneous wave velocities under harmonic excitation. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, ASCE. 151(4). https://doi.org/10.1061/JGGEFK.GTENG-12755 [Link to file]
Gowtham, G., and Sahoo, J.P. (2024). Stability analysis of circular tunnels using spatiotemporal accelerations formulated considering heterogeneity of seismic wave propagation velocities. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2024.108654 [Link to file]
Gowtham, G., and Sahoo, J.P. (2024). Seismic stability analysis of square and rectangular tunnels in cohesive-frictional soils. Natural Hazards Review, ASCE, 25(3). https://doi.org/10.1061/NHREFO.NHENG-1955 [Link to file]
Gowtham, G., and Sahoo, J.P. (2024). Seismic stability of circular tunnels in anisotropic granular soil with surcharge loading based on the modified pseudo-dynamic approach. International Journal of Geomechanics, ASCE, 24(5). https://doi.org/10.1061/IJGNAI.GMENG-9293 [Link to file]
Gowtham, G., and Sahoo, J.P. Stability of square and rectangular tunnels in sand under seismic loading. Natural Hazards 119, 1863–1881 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-023-06188-3 [Link to file]
Sahoo, J. P., and Gowtham, G. (2023). Stability evaluation of circular tunnels in cohesive frictional soil under earthquake loading using the modified pseudo-dynamic approach. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2022.107740 [Link to file]
| Name | Roll no. | Year of joining | Broad research area |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beeru Yadav | 26DR0171 | 2026 (Monsoon) | Seismic response of underground tunnels in soils |