On 25th -26^th June 2024, the School of Engineering had the honour of hosting a visit by Professor (Dr) Anusha Shah, current President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. It was a historic visit by an esteemed figure-a President of an oldest UK professional institution, founded in 1818. As a Senior Director at Arcadis, Professor Shah is a lead on Resilient Cities and UK Climate Adaptation and environmental protection in a number of infrastructure projects. She is also a non-executive director at the Meteorological Office, and a partner at the London Climate Change Partnership. It was her interest in nature-based and people-based solutions to our future infrastructure that brought her to Warwick. To see more of Professor (Dr) Anusha Shah work, please click here.

The visit started with the viewing of the iDNA sculpture in Life Sciences, and meeting its award-winning designer and artistic director, Claudette Bryanston, who works on art outputs illustrating research at Life Sciences at Warwick. The sculpture is a large-scale, unravelled model of DNA. The School of Engineering is currently lending its expertise to Life Sciences in preparing the sculpture for placement outdoors, where it will need to be protected against environmental factors, such as corrosion, and wind loading.

During her tour of the School of Engineering, Professor Shah showed great interest in the research of Professor Wanda Lewis on form-finding informed by Nature, which led to the design of materially efficient and durable arch structures. She was very keen to learn more about University’s strategy of creating an all-inclusive, ‘living lab’ campus - a concept that strongly aligns with her own vision of a ‘more sustainable, equitable, and resilient future’. She was very impressed by the expert presentation given by our Director of Estates, James Breckon, and discussions with the Vice-chancellor, Professor Stuart Croft, of the University’s strategy for the period up to 2050 with emphasis on innovation. During these meetings, she expressed a wish for closer future collaboration. In her discussions with Professors John Murphy and Georgia Kremmyda, she was introduced to aspects of School’s strategy and discussed novel teaching in civil engineering, such as the Humanitarian Engineering course pioneered by Professor Kremmyda. Again, she invited a closer collaboration with Warwick. After the visit, Professor Kremmyda wrote: ..’The conversation was so positive and I am confident there is so much we can explore further with Professor Shah within ICE and beyond’. Professor Croft expressed his gratitude for the organisation of the visit, which he much enjoyed, noting ‘great alignment’ with our strategy. The President’s comment at the end was ‘it was a visit like no other’.