NEW YORK (January 21, 2020 – MEDIA ALERT) — AECOM, the world’s premier infrastructure firm, announced the addition of several world-renowned tunnel experts: Bob Frew, C.Eng., Giuseppe Gaspari, P.Eng. and Dr. Ana Ruiz, Ph.D., to the firm’s tunneling practice in the Americas. “I’m excited to have Bob, Giuseppe and Ana as part of our tunneling team,” said Nasri Munfah, AECOM’s Americas National Tunneling Practice Leader. “Their skill sets, along with our local and global expert staff, enables us to respond to market opportunities and assist our clients with their underground and tunneling engineering challenges.”
Frew, who transferred from our London office, will serve as subject matter expert for large diameter Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) tunnels. With more than 40 years of experience in tunnel design and construction, his diverse expertise encompasses design, project management and construction management for tunnel and underground structures including roadways, rail, metro, water and sewer tunnels. He has worked on such notable projects as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in England, the Copenhagen metro, the Chong Ming Tunnel in Shanghai and the Hong Kong Harbour Area Transfer Scheme. Frew is active in national and international professional organizations and his TM-CLK project in Hong Kong holds the world record for the largest TBM at 57.75 feet in diameter and is the recipient of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA) 2019 Project of the Year Award.
Gaspari will lead AECOM’s tunneling and underground engineering practice in Canada. His tunneling experience incorporates design and program management for major programs including the 16-mile-long Kadikoy-Kartal metro line in Istanbul and the 31-mile high-speed-rail Brenner Base tunnel between Austria and Italy. In North America he has provided technical leadership for the Ontario line in Toronto, along with major design roles on such projects as the West Vaughan Sewage Servicing Project, an 8-mile EPB-TBM tunnel with nine shafts in the greater Toronto area. Gaspari is a local board member for the International Tunneling Association-Young Members, a World Tunneling Conference executive committee member and the founder of young member groups at the Italian Tunneling Society and the Italian Geotechnical Association. Gaspari has published over 20 technical papers and is an active lecturer at Queen’s University, Ryerson University, University of Toronto and York University.
Ruiz is a tunnel ventilation and life safety expert and will provide the technical expertise in this field for transportation tunnels and underground transit facilities. She has extensive experience in tunnel ventilation and fire-life safety as well as numerical modeling using Subway Environmental Simulation and computational fluid dynamic modelling for fire scenarios. Throughout her 20-year career, Ruiz has led tunnel ventilation design projects including the ventilation design for the 4-mile-long Calle Mallorca tunnel in Barcelona, Spain, part of the Madrid-Barcelona high speed rail line; ventilation design for two subway lines, covering 12 and 13 stations in Chennai, India; and in the United States, the 86th Street subway station in New York City. A member of the NFPA 502 technical committee since 2012, Ruiz has authored publications and delivered presentations at conferences. She has also served as the Spanish representative of Ministry and Industry in CERN’s Council.
About AECOM
AECOM is the world’s premier infrastructure firm, delivering professional services across the project lifecycle – from planning, design and engineering to consulting and construction management. We partner with our clients in the public and private sectors to solve their most complex challenges and build legacies for generations to come. On projects spanning transportation, buildings, water, governments, energy and the environment, our teams are driven by a common purpose to deliver a better world. AECOM is a Fortune 500 firm with revenue of approximately $20.2 billion during fiscal year 2019. See how we deliver what others can only imagine at aecom.com and @AECOM.
Media Contact:
Michael Chee
Director, External Communications, DCS Americas
213.563.8580
michael.chee@aecom.com