Junzhe (David) Liu, a CivMin PhD student under the supervision of Prof. John Harrison, has won the Best Oral Presentation Award at the Canadian Geotechnical Society -Southern Ontario Section’s annual Graduate Presentation Competition.
The CGS-SOS awarded Liu the honour at a January 22, 2025 event in Toronto with a distinguished panel of judges from academia and industry evaluating the presentations. Each participant delivered a 12-minute presentation, followed by a five-minute Q&A session, showcasing their research and presentation skills.
In his presentation titled ‘Improving Methodological Reliability in Application of Rock Mass Classifications: Likert Scale and Bayesian Ordinal Approaches’, Junzhe introduced a new approach to addressing challenges in rock mass classification systems. This study highlights the limitations of conventional Likert-scale ratings in quantifying subjective parameters such as weathering due to their ordinal nature and rigid empirical scoring. To enhance the accuracy and reliability of rock mass classifications, the research explores Bayesian ordinal models, which allow for unequal spacing between categorical ratings. By incorporating these models, the study demonstrates improvements in the robustness and granularity of rock mass classification, ultimately contributing to more reliable rock engineering design.
The results were announced on LinkedIn.