Dr. Benny Raphael is a Professor at the Building Technology and Construction Management Division and currently Head of the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He did his BTECH and M.S. in Civil Engineering at IIT Madras and obtained his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He worked at Infosys Technologies Ltd. Bangalore, EPFL Switzerland and NUS Singapore, before joining IIT Madras. He co-authored the books Fundamentals of Computer Aided Engineering (John Wiley, 2003) and Engineering Informatics (John Wiley, 2013) which are used as textbooks in many Universities. He won the distinguished R&D award from the Minister for National Development (Government of Singapore) in 2011 for innovations in developing the Zero Energy Building at the BCA Academy, Singapore. He is a core committee member of the Indian Green Building Council, Chennai Chapter. He is also a member of the board of directors and one of the Vice Presidents of the International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction (IAARC).
His core expertise is in computing in civil engineering, particularly in the use of optimization, data analytics, sensing and control technologies to solve engineering problems in construction, infrastructure and building systems. He has applied optimization and machine learning to diverse areas such as structural monitoring, building physics, construction management, automation of building systems, and construction automation. His current focus is on construction automation. He has an active research program on developing the next generation automation technologies for improving the time, cost and quality of construction. In particular, his team is investigating how we can combine robotics and 3D printing for achieving high performance in construction activities, beyond what is possible using conventional methods.