I lead the Resilience, Security and Risk team at Arup, and have over 20 years of experience advising public and private sector clients, government and regulators on the design of landmark and high-profile, high-threat buildings, infrastructure systems and assets world-wide. I lead a team of 60 people who help clients to minimise risk and to build resilience into their projects against hostile and accidental threats, and assist them in protecting people, assets and systems and business operations in the rail, airport, commercial, financial, data and sports and leisure sectors.

I have always advocated a closely-integrated approach to security design from the earliest stages of the design process, in order to ensure that resilience is efficiently and effectively achieved and is integrated with other design criteria. My work is a source of tremendous satisfaction to me in knowing I have played a part in allowing communities to thrive and in making the world a safer and more secure place.

With a structural engineering background, I am passionate about research and development in blast and structural resilience. I authored the leading text in the field of blast engineering, Blast Effects on Buildings and am actively involved in a wide range of research initiatives centred around quality in structural engineering and the advancement of knowledge. In the field of structural robustness I have led a major research study for the UK Government and authored a technical manual for the Institution of Structural Engineers on the robustness of high-risk buildings. I firmly believe in the importance of continual development of the field and in the part we can play in advancing and disseminating knowledge in a field that remains under-researched.