ProfessorBre-Anne Sainsbury

Bre-Anne completed a Bachelor of Geological Engineering at RMIT in 1999 and joined the civil engineering industry. While gaining site experience in field investigation, she completed a Master of Engineering associated with coal geomechanics at UNSW. Based on this experience she joined the Coal Compensation Board and audited coal mine production for royalty payments. She moved to the USA in 2002 and spent 5 years as a mining geotechnical consultant where she completed field investigations and numerical analyses. She joined Itasca in 2006 and during her time consulting with them she completed her PhD in caving geomechanics. Her PhD entailed the development of production algorithms and constitutive models for large-strain (typically cave mining) problems. During 2013-2015 Bre-Anne was the senior underground geotechnical engineer at Ballarat Gold.

She joined academia in 2015. In her role as a Professor of Geomechanics Bre-Anne has focused on teaching students practical skills for their careers in mining and civil engineering as well as completing practical research and modelling associated with mining and tunnelling.

Bre-Anne has provided expert witness advice for litigation related to civil engineering construction.