News

Laing O’Rourke Centre staff were among those demonstrating their research to VIPs at the opening of the Engineering Department’s prestigious new James Dyson Building earlier this month.The Building has been funded by a £8m donation from the James Dyson Foundation, the largest donation ever received by the Department.  The development consists of Th…

California based technology firm Trimble has announced that it is partnering with the University of Cambridge on research in the engineering and construction industries.The company will work closely with the Laing O’Rourke Centre’s Construction Information Technology Laboratory. Trimble’s contribution will include a sponsorship programme which will…

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Infrastructure and Built Environment (FIBE CDT) are currently looking to recruit talented students to carry out cutting edge research within a broad range of core and interdisciplinary civil engineering topics. A number of fully funded studentships which cover fees plus a tax-free stipend (currently …

Laing O’Rourke Centre PhD student Sakthy Selvakumaran has been named in the prestigious Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ listing of promising young individuals in European industry for 2016.Sakthy, 27, is researching a strategy for deriving better value from structural health monitoring.  She argues that current monitoring systems tend to produce either too mu…

Next week - 14 to 18 December 2015 – the Laing O’Rourke Centre, located at the Department of Engineering, will welcome the Cohorts 4 and 5 of the Construction Engineering Masters (CEM)*, who are attending their fifth and second residential week respectively.CEM students will attend presentations and workshops run by industry and academic experts. L…

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 f…

Civil engineering students, academics and researchers attended the Fourth Laing O’Rourke Centre Distinguished Lecture on Thursday 12th November at the Engineering Department, alongside prominent construction industry figures. Dr Bernard Charlès gave a presentation entitled Experience Thinking: the Digital Revolution in the Experience Economy. Focus…

Professor Campbell Middleton, Director of the Laing O’ Rourke Centre, was invited to deliver a presentation at the Institution of Structural Engineers' 2015 Conference, held in Singapore in September 2015. Focusing on innovation, it attracted prestigious professional and academic speakers from around the worldThe future of construction was also on …

Dr Mohammed Elshafie gave a keynote talk on the theme of "Managing natural resources and assets to drive commercial efficiency" at the Sustainability - Business stories from the inside event on 8 October 2015. Organised by Mott MacDonald and attend by over 100 industry experts, the event was held at the magnificent Shoreditch Town Hall in London.Pl…

PhD student Chang Ye Gue has been awarded the Turner Prize for Centrifuge Modelling. The Prize is awarded each year for "outstanding work in geotechnical centrifuge testing conducted by a research student working at the Schofield Centre in Cambridge".Professor Robert Mair, Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering, presented the award on 9 Octobe…

William (Bill) Baker, regarded as the world’s foremost structural engineer, having designed the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai among other iconic structures, has been appointed by the University of Cambridge to serve for five years as Honorary Professor of Structural Engineering Design.Bill is the Structural Engineering Partner…

Prof. Campbell Middleton gave a presentation entitled Transforming Construction – Challenging the Status Quo at the Silver Jubilee International Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction Management organised by the Sri Lankan Society of Structural Engineers (SSESL) in August 2015 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.The Conference - on the theme of “T…

Dr Mohammed Elshafie, Laing O’Rourke Lecturer in Construction Engineering - who co-authored the paper Fibre Optic Monitoring of a Deep Circular Excavationwith CSIC colleagues and industry partners Tina Schwamb, Kenichi Soga, Robert J. Mair, Richard Sutherden, Clotilde Boquet and John Greenwood – will be awarded the Russell Crampton Prize for Best P…

One four-year PhD studentship is available to start on 1 Oct 2016 at the Laing O’Rourke Centre, part of the Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge. The topic is automating the generation of as-is geometric models of industrial facilities. The project - supervised by Dr Ioannis Brilakis, Laing O’Rourke Lecturer of Construction Enginee…

CEM03 student Rico Salas was awarded the Best Presentation Award for his dissertation entitled Leading Indicators of Oil and Gas Construction Safety. Prof. Campbell Middleton presented the Award at a banquet dinner held at Queens' College.