Laing O’Rourke Associate Professor in Construction Engineering, Department of Engineering

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 the 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 the University of Cambridge to take up the Laing O’Rourke Associate Professorship in Construction Engineering while holding a Visiting Fellowship at the 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’. In the same year, he co-founded the tech startup “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 in the UK.