RESEARCH. FIELD EXPERIENCE. ENGINEERING JUDGMENT.
Dr. Xuefeng (Jason) Nong — Founder of RAUZ
Meet the founder behind RAUZ: a geotechnical engineer whose research, monitoring experience and technology direction shape a remote-first approach to turning field and satellite data into engineering intelligence.
Founder & Technical Origin
Dr. Xuefeng (Jason) Nong
Dr. Xuefeng (Jason) Nong is the founder of RAUZ. His background combines geotechnical engineering research, instrumentation and monitoring, infrastructure projects and technical product development. RAUZ is being built around a simple problem he has repeatedly encountered in engineering practice: monitoring projects can generate more data than teams can comfortably interpret.
University of Tokyo
The University of Tokyo repository records a doctoral degree in Engineering awarded to Nong Xuefeng on 27 September 2013 through the Department of Civil Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering.
University of Tokyo record ↗Ground behaviour and measurement
Published work associated with his research includes soft-rock weathering, soil-water characteristic curves, soil shrinkage and soil-root mechanical behaviour.
See selected publications ↓Monitoring and infrastructure
The existing official GEOOE founder profile records professional experience spanning major Singapore infrastructure monitoring, post-earthquake work in China and Japan, and geotechnical and environmental engineering.
Official GEOOE founder profile ↗Why RAUZ Exists
The difficult part of monitoring is often not collecting another reading.
Field instrumentation, automated loggers, survey systems and satellite observations can produce large volumes of information. The harder questions come afterwards: Is the movement real? Is it accelerating? Does it agree with the construction sequence and ground conditions? Does it matter? What should the project team examine next?
Measurement
Sensors, survey and InSAR provide observations. Each source has its own resolution, uncertainty, geometry and failure modes.
Interpretation
Engineering judgment connects those observations with geology, groundwater, construction activity, instrument behaviour and plausible mechanisms.
Decision
RAUZ is focused on making that interpretation repeatable enough to support independent review, recurring monitoring intelligence and eventually scalable software and data products.
Academic Foundation
Geotechnical research before monitoring intelligence.
The founder’s academic record provides a useful clue to the way RAUZ approaches monitoring: understand the physical mechanism first, then interpret the measurement. The University of Tokyo’s official records identify Nong Xuefeng as a doctoral graduate in Engineering from the Department of Civil Engineering.
Doctor of Engineering — The University of Tokyo
The official University of Tokyo repository records the degree award on 27 September 2013. The university’s Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory thesis list identifies his doctoral thesis as “Laboratory reproduction and microscopic observation of mechanical weathering process of soft rock”.
Soft-rock weathering and changing mechanical behaviour
The research examined how weathering processes affect rock strength and stiffness, an engineering problem where changing material behaviour must be understood rather than inferred from a single observation.
Unsaturated soil, water retention and environmental geotechnics
Later publications extend into soil-water characteristic curves, organic-content effects on soil behaviour and soil-root interaction, linking geotechnical behaviour with environmental and monitoring questions.
Selected Research
Research that connects material behaviour, water and measurement.
The publications below are included because they are directly traceable to publisher or institutional records. They are not presented as RAUZ research projects.
Investigation of mechanical properties of soft rock due to laboratory reproduction of physical weathering process
Published in Soils and Foundations, Volume 57, Issue 2 (2017), pages 267–276. The study examined changes in soft-rock strength and stiffness under reproduced weathering cycles.
Publisher record ↗Expedited Soil–Water Characteristic Curve Tests Using Combined Centrifuge and Chilled Mirror Techniques
ASTM’s official record lists X. F. Nong among the authors and identifies his affiliation with the Environmental Process Modelling Centre at Nanyang Technological University.
ASTM record ↗Effects of organic content on soil-water characteristic curve and soil shrinkage
The publication is identified by DOI 10.1680/jenge.19.00028 and examines how soil organic content affects water-retention behaviour and shrinkage.
DOI record ↗Mechanical response of the real tree root architecture under lateral load
DOI 10.1139/cjfr-2019-0332. The work considers the mechanical response of tree-root–soil systems under lateral loading and links field observations with mechanical interpretation.
DOI record ↗Professional Engineering Experience
Field context matters because monitoring data never exists in isolation.
The official GEOOE founder profile records more than 15 years of experience across geotechnical and environmental engineering, instrumentation and monitoring, soil investigation, infrastructure delivery and quality management in Singapore and Asia.
Major infrastructure monitoring environments
The founder profile records experience associated with Singapore’s LTA North-South Corridor, MRT infrastructure environments including CCL, EWL and DTL, Kampong Glam heritage monitoring and HDB residential-development monitoring assignments.
Post-earthquake monitoring and reconstruction
The same official profile records experience connected with China Geological Survey Wenchuan post-earthquake monitoring and reconstruction work during 2008–2010.
Post-earthquake building monitoring
It also records Great East Japan Earthquake post-earthquake building-monitoring experience during 2011–2013.
Technical Direction at RAUZ
Move the value of monitoring from collection toward interpretation.
The founder’s role at RAUZ is to shape the technical framework behind a remote-first monitoring-intelligence company. The business is deliberately focused on capabilities that can be delivered globally without rebuilding a local installation workforce in every market.
Monitoring Intelligence
Recurring review of monitoring data, trends, trigger conditions and engineering significance.
Independent Monitoring Review
An independent technical layer that reviews the monitoring rather than needing to perform the monitoring itself.
InSAR Ground Motion Intelligence
Satellite-derived movement interpreted in a geotechnical context and, where useful, compared with ground monitoring.
Monitoring Design & Strategy
Monitoring philosophy, instrument selection, baseline strategy, trigger frameworks and reporting requirements.
Monitoring Data Diagnostics
Focused technical investigation of unusual movement, conflicting instruments, bad baselines or unexplained trends.
Automated Reporting
Structured workflows for data checks, charts, rates, thresholds and engineer-reviewed technical reporting.
Engineering Principles
The founder’s technical standard for RAUZ.
Monitoring intelligence becomes useful only when the limits of the evidence are treated as seriously as the conclusions. The working principles below are intended to guide RAUZ analysis, review and product development.
- Data quality before interpretation
- Trend before isolated reading
- Rate of change alongside magnitude
- Ground and construction context before alarm
- Correlate independent datasets where possible
- Separate observation from inference
- State limitations explicitly
- Keep engineer review in the decision loop
Why not treat a dashboard alert as an engineering conclusion?
Why does RAUZ combine engineering and software?
Why is independent review commercially important?
From Founder to System
RAUZ should not become a business that only sells the founder’s time.
Founder-led technical judgment is useful at the beginning, but it is not a scalable business model by itself. RAUZ therefore aims to turn repeatable engineering methods into documented workflows, review standards, software-assisted processes and recurring monitoring-intelligence services.
Expert method
Define how an experienced engineer checks data quality, movement trends, thresholds and context.
Structured workflow
Turn that method into consistent inputs, review stages, decision points and traceable outputs.
Technology-enabled service
Automate repetitive processing while preserving human review for uncertainty and engineering significance.
Monitoring intelligence product
Support multiple sites and asset portfolios through recurring software, data and engineering services.
Verified Public Sources
Claims on this page should be traceable.
RAUZ uses first-party institutional or publisher records wherever possible. The links below are provided so clients, partners and researchers can check the academic and publication information directly.
The University of Tokyo Repository
Doctoral degree record for Nong Xuefeng, Department of Civil Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering. Degree awarded 27 September 2013.
Open official record ↗University of Tokyo Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory
The laboratory’s official thesis list identifies the founder’s doctoral thesis under the geotechnical laboratory record.
Open official thesis list ↗ASTM International
Official publication record for the soil-water characteristic curve study, including author and affiliation information.
Open ASTM record ↗Soils and Foundations / ScienceDirect
Publisher record for the 2017 soft-rock weathering paper by Xuefeng Nong and Ikuo Towhata.
Open publisher record ↗Environmental Geotechnics DOI
Persistent DOI record for the paper on organic content, soil-water characteristic curves and soil shrinkage.
Open DOI ↗GEOOE Official Founder Profile
First-party public record for the founder’s prior professional experience, selected publications and professional background.
Open GEOOE profile ↗FAQs
About the founder and RAUZ’s technical direction.
Is the founder’s earlier infrastructure experience presented as RAUZ project experience?
What is the founder’s academic background?
Why is RAUZ focused on monitoring intelligence rather than installation?
Does RAUZ intend to replace geotechnical engineers with AI?
Can clients work directly with the founder?
Technical Collaboration
Bring a difficult monitoring question.
RAUZ is interested in projects where monitoring data needs deeper interpretation, an independent technical view or a more scalable analytical workflow. A first discussion can begin with a sample dataset, monitoring report, InSAR output or project brief.