Professor Schalk Jacobsz is an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering, the Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT) at the University of Pretoria.
He joined the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Pretoria in 2010 and established a geotechnical centrifuge laboratory in 2012. His research interests include physical modelling of geotechnical problems relevant in the South Africa context such as sinkholes, expansive clays and tailings dams. A theme central to these topics is the field of unsaturated soil mechanics. He developed a low-cost high-capacity tensiometer capable of measuring soil suctions in the laboratory and in the field. The tensiometer, complimented by additional instrumentation, enables the assessment and long-term monitoring and understanding of unsaturated soil properties.
Prof Jacobsz holds a BEng (Cum Laude) and MEng (Cum Laude) from the University of Pretoria and a PhD from the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) in Geotechnical Engineering and is a Fellow of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) and registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) as a Professional Engineer.
