Leadership and governance
Dr Brian Sheil, Laing O’Rourke Associate Professor in Construction Engineering
Director of CSIC
Dr Brian Sheil is the new CSIC Director. He is a civil engineer specialising in geotechnical engineering and construction. His research involves the development of new science and technology to optimise the efficiency, safety and sustainability of underground construction. Dr Sheil has been honoured with prestigious fellowships, including from the Royal Academy of Engineering and St Catherine’s College, and holds an Honorary Research Senior Lecturer position at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG). In 2022 he was appointed as the Laing O’Rourke Associate Professor of Construction Engineering at the University of Cambridge, leading pioneering projects funded by EPSRC and Supergen ORE hub, advancing sensor technology for construction and offshore structures. He is committed to data-centric engineering and was recognised with the Young Researcher Award in 2022 by the Civil Engineering Research Association of Ireland.
Professor Lord Robert Mair, CBE and ICE President 2018
Founding Head of CSIC
Professor Lord Robert Mair, is the Founding Head of CSIC and Emeritus Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) 2017-2018, its 200th Anniversary year. Lord Mair is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Engineering. Prior to his appointment to a Professorship at Cambridge, he worked in industry for 27 years as a Geotechnical Engineer, and was a founding Director of Geotechnical Consulting Group (GCG). He has advised on numerous tunnelling and major civil engineering projects in the UK and worldwide, including the Jubilee Line Extension, Crossrail, HS1 and HS2. Appointed an independent crossbencher in the House of Lords in 2015, Lord Mair was until recently a member of its Select Committees on Science and Technology and on Risk Assessment and Risk Planning.
Professor Mark Girolami, FRSE
Data-Centric Lead
Professor Mark Girolami spent ten years as a Chartered Engineer within IBM prior to his election to the Sir Kirby Laing Professorship of Civil Engineering within the Department of Engineering, where he also holds the Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Data Centric Engineering. He is Chief Scientist at the Alan Turing Institute, where he established and led the Lloyd’s Register Foundation Programme on Data Centric Engineering. An elected fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers and the Royal Society of Edinburgh as well as a recipient of a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and the Royal Statistical Society Guy Medal in Silver, he currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the new open-access journal Data Centric Engineering published by Cambridge University Press.