Rate My Professor Anna Giacomini

Her primary research interests encompass rock mechanics, rockfall analysis—both experimental and numerical—stability of rock masses, hydromechanical behaviour of rock joints, mine geotechnics, mine safety, rockfall hazard assessment, rockfall protection design, slope stability, and remote sensing applications for rock slope stability. As Australia’s preeminent authority on rockfall mechanics and protection design, her contributions have shaped mitigation strategies, including wire safety netting, design guidelines, and management practices utilized by government agencies and industry. With over 140 scientific publications, 26% of which rank among the top 10% most cited globally, notable works include “Predicting rockfall hazard with deep learning: Latent feature extraction from geological layers” (2026), “Fragmentation Patterns and Trajectories During Rockfall: Analysis of the Influence of Discontinuities and Impact Conditions Through Drop Tests” (2026), “Individual Shear Strength of Natural Rock Discontinuities” (2018), “An Equivalent Continuum Approach to Efficiently Model the Response of Steel Wire Meshes to Rockfall Impacts” (2018), and “Full-scale experimental testing of dump-point safety berms in surface mining” (2015). Giacomini’s accolades include Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering (2023), the John Booker Medal from the Australian Academy of Science (2019), the NSW Premier’s Prize for Excellence in Engineering (2022), and the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Supervision (2018). She contributes to editorial boards of prominent journals like Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering and Proceedings of the ICE - Geotechnical Engineering, and has served in key university committees, including the ARC College of Experts since 2021.