About Alba Rodríguez Piedrabuena

Alba Rodríguez Piedrabuena is a geotechnical engineer specialising as a Researcher and Advisor in offshore energy projects within the GEO Unit at Deltares.

She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Spain (2020), where she completed her thesis on the "Feasibility Study of Using Augmented Reality in Geotechnical Site Investigation." She later hold a Master's degree in Geo-engineering from TU Delft (2024), with her research focused on "First Steps into the Calibration Chamber Pile Tests with Glauconitic Sands."

Her master's thesis contributed to a conference paper presented at the European Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics in Delft and she is nominated for the Ingeokring best thesis award in Engineering Geology (2022– 2024). Alba has also co-authored several abstracts accepted for the upcoming ISFOG conference in Nantes, France, in 2025.

At Deltares, Alba plays a key technical role, participating in innovative projects such as Hydraulic Pile Extraction - Scaled Tests 1.2 (HyPE-ST 1.2), which investigates the decommissioning of monopiles through hydraulic extraction, and the Silent Installation of MonoPiLEs (Simple III), which explores a novel installation technique combining vibro technology with water jetting inside monopiles. Her work also includes research on the behaviour of glauconite soils and their effects on offshore construction.

During her time at Deltares, Alba has been developing expertise in soil-structure interaction and in various modelling techniques, including physical (1g) scaled modelling and centrifuge modelling. Her work is significantly contributing to advancing geotechnical engineering practices in offshore environments.