A PhD student at IT Sligo has been chosen to represent Ireland at the 21st European Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference in Rotterdam in September.
Anthony Blake from Charlestown in Co Mayo was chosen as one of two Irish representatives to attend the prestigious conference, after winning a competition held by the Geotechnical Society of Engineers Ireland. The other Irish nominee is Roselyn Carroll from UCD.
Anthony is one of a team of researchers in the Geotechnical Research Group in IT Sligo and the area of focus for his PhD is on ‘Dynamically Embedded Anchor’s – a cost effective anchoring solution for the offshore energy industry’.
A graduate of the BSc Civil Engineering Course at IT Sligo, Anthony is delighted to be representing Ireland on the European stage; “This is a great opportunity and I’m looking forward to meeting with my peers from across Europe. The continuous depletion of oil and gas deposits in shallow water has made it necessary to exploit reserves in deeper waters to ensure future supply, and research into the geotechnical behaviour of deepwater anchoring systems for floating oil and gas structures is crucial in order to make the move to deeper waters feasible.”
Anthony is the third student from IT Sligo to represent Ireland at the European Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference i in the last three years.