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Professor Lord Robert Mair CBE elected to US National Academy of Engineering

Professor Lord Robert Mair CBE elected to US National Academy of Engineering

Professor Lord Robert Mair CBE, Head of the Department's Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC), has been elected to the US National Academy of Engineering.  

Professor Lord Robert Mair has been elected for his contributions to underground construction and smart infrastructure and for leadership in government, engineering practice, research, and education.

Official citation

Election to the Academy as a Foreign Member is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer – there are currently only 272 Foreign Members. Professor Lord Mair has been elected for his contributions to underground construction and smart infrastructure and for leadership in government, engineering practice, research, and education.

Professor Lord Mair will be formally inducted as a Foreign Member of the Academy as part of an official ceremony to be held at the Academy's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in October.

About Professor Lord Robert Mair CBE

Professor Lord Robert Mair graduated in 1971 from the University of Cambridge, where he read Engineering at Clare College, and worked continuously in industry until 1998, except for a three-year period in the late 1970's when he returned to Cambridge to work for his PhD on tunnelling in soft ground.

He was appointed Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the University in 1998; the Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering from 2011-2017; Master of Jesus College from 2001-2011; a Fellow of St John's College from 1998-2001; President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) from 2017-2018. And in October 2017, he became Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of Research at the University of Cambridge.

He is also one of the founding Directors of the Geotechnical Consulting Group (GCG), an international consulting company based in London, which started in 1983. He was awarded a CBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours list; appointed Chief Engineering Adviser to the Laing O'Rourke Group in 2011; and appointed as an independent crossbencher in the House of Lords in 2015.

A full biography is available here.

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