Biography

Dr Brian Sheil studied Civil Engineering for his undergraduate degree at the University of Galway. He studied the behaviour of deep foundation systems for his PhD jointly between University of Galway and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2014, Brian joined the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher in experimental geotechnics focused on industry-funded research projects and was subsequently promoted to departmental lecturer in geotechnical engineering in January 2017. He was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship (at Oxford) in March 2018. At the same time, he was also awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at St Catherine’s College. In 2022, he was awarded the title of Associate Professor. In September 2022, Brian moved to University of Cambridge to take up the Laing O’Rourke Associate Professorship in Construction Engineering while holding a Visiting Fellowship at University of Oxford. In 2024 he became director of the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) at Cambridge and was recently awarded an EPSRC Open Fellowship for his work on ‘Digital Underground Construction’.

Brian has won three awards to commercialise outcomes from his research  and in 2024 he co-founded the tech start-up “InfraMind” to develop AI solutions for infrastructure where he serves as Chief Scientist. InfraMind has delivered the world’s first “digital inspector” for infrastructure which is currently being trialled by major organisations such as National Highways, Network Rail and Transport for London.

Brian is an editor of the journal ‘Data-Centric Engineering’, is an Associate Editor for ‘Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering’ and is an editorial board member for both ‘Tunnelling & Underground Space Technology’ and ‘Underground Space’. He recently received the ‘Young Researcher Award 2022’ from the Civil Engineering Research Association of Ireland, the ‘Bright Spark Lecture Award’ from the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering and the ‘Geotechnical Engineering Proceedings Lecture’ nominated by the Editorial Panel of ICE Proceedings Geotechnical Engineering.