AECOM appoints two tunnelling experts

Mike Mains (left) and Roberto deMoraes (right). Photos courtesy AECOM.

AECOM has appointed Mike Mains senior tunnel design lead and Roberto deMoraes director of tunnels. They join the infrastructure consulting firm’s existing tunnelling practice in the Metro Vancouver regional district.

Mains is a civil engineer who studied at McGill University and the University of British Columbia (UBC) and has worked with GeoPacific Consultants, McMillen Jacobs Associates and Eiffage Génie Civil on transportation and water systems in Canada, the U.S., France and Australia. His expertise includes the use of large-diameter tunnel boring machines (TBMs) and the sequential excavation method (SEM) and he is a licensed engineer in both British Columbia and California.

Meanwhile, deMoraes is a geotechnical and tunnelling engineer with more than 26 years’ international experience, including work on energy, water and transit projects in Brazil, the U.K., Portugal, Turkey, Albania, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, the U.A.E., Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. He is a chartered engineering geologist in Brazil, a member of the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM) and a fellow of the Geological Society of London, the Portuguese Geotechnical Society and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3). He first joined AECOM in the U.K. in 2019.

“The addition of Mike and Roberto to our practice strengthens our ability to meet growing demand for innovative solutions and the latest technologies for underground structures in cities across Canada,” says Nasri Munfah, AECOM’s director of tunnelling and underground engineering for the Americas. “Each brings broad expertise and best practices, gained from working on major projects across the globe.”