Kevin Zhang

Prof Guomin (Kevin) Zhang is an expert in sustainable construction and asset management, with more than 20 years experience in teaching and research and industry engagement.

Dr Guomin (Kevin) Zhang is a Professor in the School of Engineering at RMIT University. He has a proven track record of academic and research leadership in construction engineering and management, with special interest in sustainable construction and asset management, supported by digitalized engineering and life cycle assessment. He has led and participated in a large number of research projects with total funding over $20 million including ARC linkage project, CRC projects and industry sponsored projects, with collaborators across industry, governments and universities in Australia and overseas. He has authored more than 280 publications including more than 175 papers in peer-reviewed academic journals. He has supervised 20 PhD students to successful completions.

As the coordinators of several core courses in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs in the Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, he is a strong advocator of blended learning and authentic assessment and achieved excellent CES results. As the program manager for BH077 Civil and Infrastructure Engineering (Honours) – the largest single degree undergraduate program at RMIT University from 2011 to 2016, he led the program rationalisation which reduced program teaching loads without sacrificing quality. From 2016 to 2023 as the Associate Dean – Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, he led the discipline to achieve many successes such as continuously improved CES, more than doubled research incomes and high staff satisfaction. He was the Chair of the Academic Workload Committee in the School of Engineering in 2020-2021. He is elected to be a member in the Academic Board at RMIT University starting from January 2022. Currently, he is the Deputy Dean - Research and Innovation in the School of Engineering.

Industry experience:
- Working with local councils and industry companies such as Melbourne City Council, Kingston City Council and Brimbank City Council in sustainable asset management
- Working with industry companies such as Multiplex and Hansen Yuncken in lower carbon construction, BIM and project risk management
- Working with local governments such as City of Yarra in kerbside glass waste recycling
- Working with industry companies such as Robert Bird Group in modular design and construction

Awards:
2019: Best Paper Award in the 24th International Symposium on the Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate, for paper titled “Implementing Proactive Building Asset Management through Deterioration Prediction: A Case Study in Australia”, 29th November – 2nd December 2019, Chongqing, China

2017: RMIT Research Excellence – Team Award to Sujeeva Setunge, Chunqing Li, Guomin Zhang, Davlid Law, Dilan Robert and Rebecca Gravina, 2017 for the excellent research team work in Infrastructure Asset Management

2016: Best Paper Award in the Pacific Association of Quantity Surveyors Congress 2016, Pacific Association of Quantity, Christchurch, New Zealand, for paper titled “Emerging issues related to stakeholder management in PPP projects: An Australia study”, 20-24 May, Christchurch, New Zealand

2014: Best Paper Award in the 19th International Symposium on the Advancement of Construction Management and Real Estate, for paper titled “Environmental emissions of construction equipment usage in pile foundation construction process – a case study”, 7th-9th November 2014, Chongqing, China

2013: Best Paper Award in the ICOMS Asset Management Conference, for paper titled “Sustainable management of Australian community buildings: An integrated decision- making framework”, Melbourne, Australia, 3-6 June 2013

2012: Best Paper Award in ICOMS Asset Management Conference, for paper titled “A probabilistic approach for deterioration prediction and cost optimization of community buildings using Monte Carlo simulation”, Hobart, 4-8 June 2012