Director of the Centre for Smart Infrastructure
Academic Division: Civil Engineering
Telephone: +44 1223 7 61866
Email: jms33@eng.cam.ac.uk
Research interests
Dr Jennifer Schooling is Director of the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC), at the University of Cambridge. CSIC is an Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC) with the specific aim to transform infrastructure and construction through smarter information.
CSIC brings together world-class engineering research, academic excellence and commercial industry to support the UK in becoming a world leader in the fields of sensing technology, asset management and smart city development. The Centre focuses on how better data and information from a wide range of sensing systems can be used to improve our understanding of our infrastructure, leading to better design, construction and management practices. CSIC has strong collaborations with industry, developing and demonstrating innovations on real construction and infrastructure projects, and developing standards and guidance to enable implementation.
Within CSIC, Jennifer leads the Digital Cities for Change (DC2) project. This project aims to deepen understanding of how built environment data can help improve city planning, management and the delivery of public services, demonstrating how built environment data and digital tools can be used to inform better and more cohesive decision- making. This has included a pilot project with Smart Cambridge to develop and assess a digital twin for strategic planning purposes. Jennifer is also lead investigator on the Centre's work on decarbonisation of construction through data, and it's Embedded Asset Sensing work, and
Jennifer is the Academic Champion for Mark Enzer's Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professorship.
For further information please see CSIC's website: http://www.centreforsmartinfrastructure.com
Research projects
I have a particular interest in how we build the value case for smart infrastructure interventions, in particular for long-lived assets such as infrastructure. Digitalisation in the context of cities. Business models which enable value to be attributed across different stakeholders. Cybersecurity dimensions of smart infrastructure.
Other positions
Fellow of Darwin College
Biography
Dr Jennifer Schooling is Director of the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC), at the University of Cambridge. She works with colleagues in industry and academia to demonstrate how better data and information from a range of sensing systems can be used to improve our understanding of infrastructure, leading to better design, construction and asset management practices, and to improve our understanding of how our infrastructure serves our communities. This has included projects in structural health monitoring, whole-life value-based asset management and development of digital twins to support decision making. She has contributed to a range of industry guidance, policy documents and wider industry publications to raise awareness of the need for digitalisation. Jennifer was founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Smart Infrastructure and Construction Proceedings journal (ICE). She has served on BSI and ISO committees developing standards for digitalisation in the built environment, and is a member of the UK Infrastructure Client Group’s Digital Transformation Task group (DTTG). Jennifer was lead author for the Carbon Reduction Code for the Built Environment. In 2019 Jennifer was awarded the OBE and the ICE President’s Medal for services to engineering and digital construction.
Prior to joining the Centre Jennifer worked for Arup, the global engineering consultancy, for six years. There she led the firm’s Research Business, delivering research strategy development to aid clients in targeting their investments to improve their productivity and competitiveness. During her work managing complex interdisciplinary research projects for clients she developed a strong understanding of the demands placed on our infrastructure and the challenges of extending the design life of existing assets – of which more is being demanded all the time. Jennifer was also Arup’s Research Relationships Manager for the UK, working with staff and academic partners to develop strong collaborative relationships and managing the firm’s research investments.
Before joining Arup, Jennifer spent seven years working for Edwards Vacuum (then BOC Edwards) as a manager for New Product Introductions, leading a cross-disciplinary team to design and bring into production high speed turbo-molecular pumps for the semiconductor and scientific industries across the world.
Jennifer has a PhD in Materials Science from the University of Cambridge.