Filippo Giustozzi

Experienced leader in road engineering passionate about advancing the Australian infrastructure sector; focused on delivering practical and readily implementable research outcomes.

Associate Professor Filippo Giustozzi is an expert in road and airport pavement materials. He completed his second Ph.D. at Virginia Tech University (USA) and is the Chair of the Technical Committee on Sustainable and Resilient Pavements at the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in the USA.

He has participated in several major road and airport construction projects since 2008. Dr. Giustozzi collaborates with national and international government bodies, local governments, industry and product stewardship associations to deliver projects on a variety of topics with practical outcomes, mainly on polymer-modified bitumen and recycled materials for road applications.

At RMIT University, he is leading the Intelligent Materials for Road and Airport Pavements research group and is managing the only university-based fully-equipped asphalt and bitumen laboratory in Australia, which currently employs more than 20 researchers with backgrounds spanning from civil engineering, materials science, chemistry to environmental science.

Filippo and his team delive practical research outcomes to rapidly advance the Australian infrastructure sector. This is done by developing nationally-relevant projects on the use of recycled materials in roads.

Over the past years, he has developed the only fully-equipped university-based laboratory in asphalt and bituminous materials in Australia capable of running a variety of tests. This laboratory also encompasses chemistry, chemical engineering, environmental engineering and materials science with a specific focus on sustainability of transport infrastructure.

He and his team have pioneered and developed the first testing protocol for the assessment of microplastics release from road pavements. Filippo is currently leading the national Austroads project APT6305 on Road-grade recycled plastics for sustainable asphalt pavements, funded by the Transport and Infrastructure Council that brings together Commonwealth, State, Territory and New Zealand Ministers for Transport.

Their research outcomes have fostered several new field applications where real roads have been built using innovative and sustainable products. Within his team, they also have expertise in life cycle assessment and carbon footprinting of materials with a clear focus on the decarbonisation of transport infrastructure.

Roads, Airports, Transport infrastructure, Pavements, Asphalt, Bitumen, Recycling, Sustainable pavements, Life cycle assessment, Polymer modified bitumen, Crumb Rubber, Recycled plastics, Rejuvenators, Carbon footprint, Net-zero transport

• Transport infrastructure design and maintenance
• Recycled materials in infrastructure
• Life-cycle assessment
• Sustainability
• Polymer modified bitumen and asphalt
• Smart pavement materials
• Pavement modeling and design
• Permeable pavements
• Ageing and weathering of bituminous materials

• Odours and emissions from bitumen and recycled material-modified bitumen
• Correlation between bitumen and asphalt mixtures properties
• Hybrid polymers for bitumen modification
• Crumb rubber modified bitumen and asphalt specifications
• Bitumen oxidisation mechanisms
• Asphalt rejuvenation via chemically modified waste cooking oil
• The release of microplastics from polymer-modified asphalt materials
• Anti clogging flood-resilient permeable asphalt pavements
• Enhancement of asphalt using passenger tyres crumb rubber, pre-treatment strategies and future recyclability
• Waste plastic modified bitumen and asphalt