Neil Hoult, Associate Professor of Structural Engineering at Queen’s University, Canada, has been awarded the Beaufort Visiting Fellowships at St John’s College, Cambridge. He was sponsored by Prof. Campbell Middleton and Dr Janet Lees, his former supervisors at the University of Cambridge.
Neil graduated with a Master’s of Applied Science in 2001 from the University of Toronto. He worked as a structural designer for Halsall Associates for a year then moved to England to do a PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Dr Janet Lees. After his graduation in 2006, he went back to Halsall Associates for another year. He returned to Cambridge a second time to take on a post as a Research Associate, working with Prof. Campbell Middleton. He spent three years researching structural health monitoring tools including wireless sensor networks and fibre optic sensors.
Neil has continued his research into structural monitoring at Queen’s University, Canada, where he teaches courses in Solid Mechanics and Infrastructure Rehabilitation, alongside two graduate courses in Assessment and Monitoring of Infrastructure.
Prof. Hoult will be based at the Department of Engineering and St John’s College for two and a half months, exploring opportunities for collaboration with Prof. Middleton in areas related to monitoring including how monitoring data can be used to improve the design and construction of new buildings. By using distributed sensors, such as fibre optic strain sensors and digital image correlation, the behaviour of complex structures can be understood like never before, thus creating exciting new opportunities for construction.