Gianvito Scaringi delivered an invited lecture at the 29th European Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference (EYGEC), held in Rijeka, Croatia, from 9–12 September 2025.

The highly successful event took place at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Rijeka, under the auspices of the ISSMGE and the Croatian Geotechnical Society (HGD). The conference was expertly organised by Prof. Martina Vivoda Prodan, supported by a dedicated team of Croatian researchers, including Prof. Sanja Dugonjić Jovančević and Prof. Josip Peranić.

In addition to Gianvito Scaringi, invited lectures were delivered by several distinguished experts: Prof. Dietmar Adam (TU Wien), scientific chair of the upcoming 21st ICSMGE (Vienna, 14–19 June 2026); Emeritus Prof. Željko Arbanas (University of Rijeka); Prof. Sabatino Cuomo (University of Salerno); Prof. Luca Piciullo (NGI–OsloMet); and Prof. Jordan Aaron (ETH Zürich).

The conference brought together a vibrant community of early-career researchers and covered a wide range of contemporary topics in geotechnical engineering—from advanced constitutive modelling and unsaturated soil mechanics to slope stability, deep excavations, and foundation engineering.

In his lecture, Gianvito Scaringi traced the origins of research on thermo–hydro–mechanical coupling in clays, paying a heartfelt tribute to the late Prof. James K. Mitchell. He then provided an overview of key experimental developments over recent decades, culminating in recent findings on the thermal sensitivity of soil strength parameters and their implications for slope stability and the dynamics of clayey landslides.

The full conference proceedings are available on the official EYGEC website.