Sustainable Structures of the Future

Brian is IStructE President 2026 and Scientia Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of New South Wales. With a BE (Hons 1) and PhD from UNSW, he has held senior academic roles and worked with leading engineering firms on building and offshore structures. He chairs Australian/New Zealand steel and composite standards and serves as Vice President of IABSE. 

Wei is an internationally recognised town planner and urban designer, CEO and Co-founder of the Digital Task Force for Planning, and Chair of Wei Yang & Partners. She is a former President of the Royal Town Planning Institute, former Chair of the Construction Industry Council, and member of the UK Government’s New Towns Taskforce. She leads the digital transformation of spatial planning, championing integrated, nature-first and interdisciplinary approaches to creating sustainable, resilient and thriving places for future generations.

An industry champion for the promotion of urban density and lower-carbon construction, a 2024 US Special Presidential Envoy on Climate and a 2023 ENR top 25 news maker, Don helped found the Carbon Leadership Forum, Building Transparency, the Lower-Carbon Concrete Task Force, and the MKA Foundation. He has been inducted into the UC Berkeley Academy of Distinguished Alumni.   
 
The past President of MKA, Don has driven diverse teams in the design of high-rise and mixed-use projects in more than 50 major metropolitan centers and 18 countries, including over 47 Performance-Based Seismic Design projects in areas of high seismicity. 

Ed is a licensed civil and structural engineer in Washington, and is licensed in six other states.  He is the sole proprietor of Huston Structural Engineering, PLLC.  Ed has over 4 decades of experience in structural design, evaluation, investigation and US code and standards development.  He has been very active in the Structural Engineers Association of Washington (SEAW), the National Council of Structural Engineering Associations (NCSEA), the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), and IStructE, where he is a Chartered Member, an Institution representative in the United States, and a member of the exams panel.    
 
Ed has served on the board of directors and as President of the Applied Technology Council (ATC), a national nonprofit organization whose goal is to develop and disseminate engineering applications for mitigating the effects of natural and other hazards on the built environment.  He served on the Project Technical Committee for P-2055, the Post-disaster Building Safety Evaluation Guidance.  Ed was the Lead Technical Consultant for the development of ATC 45 - A Field Manual for Safety Evaluations of Buildings after Windstorms and Floods.  He also was a reviewer for the ATC 20-3 Case studies in Rapid Postearthquake Safety Evaluation of Buildings. Ed has participated in reconnaissance efforts after hurricanes, floods, high wind events, and earthquakes

Professor Hanif Kara OBE, co-founder and Design Director of AKT II, is an internationally renowned structural engineer, educator, and advocate for interdisciplinary design. With over 40 years’ experience, he has championed collaboration between engineering, architecture, technology, and society. A refugee from Uganda who came to the UK in the 1970s, he was awarded an OBE in 2022 for services to architecture, engineering, and education. He is Professor-in-Practice at Harvard GSD, has received numerous prestigious honours, and has played influential advisory, jury, and design review roles internationally while helping AKT II win over 400 design awards.

Jay is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he teaches architectural engineering. As a past co-chair of the SEI Sustainability Committee, he was the editor of the SEI Prestandard for the Assessment of Embodied Carbon. Currently Jay leads an SEI Task Committee on developing a zero-carbon roadmap for the structural engineering profession. Additionally, Jay is a co-founder of Preoptima, a climate- and prop-tech startup supporting local government and industry in realizing low-carbon buildings.

Laura is a Senior Associate at Heyne Tillett Steel Structural and Civil Engineers. She is a chartered structural engineer and leads the research, testing and development of new structural techniques and technologies, with a focus on sustainability. She is committed to strengthening knowledge to address the critical issues in our industry and bring about positive change within the built environment.
 

Dan Bergsagel is the International Sustainability Lead and a Structural Engineer for schlaich bergermann partner (sbp) where he is the Embodied Carbon Champion for industry-led initiatives SE2050 and Infrastructure 2050. He is a member of the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) Sustainability Committee and chairs their Circular Economy Working Group. He is also a visiting fellow at Cornell AAP’s Circular Construction Lab and teaches structural engineering for architects.

Andrea is a Chartered Environmentalist and Engineer who has been at the forefront of circularity in the built environment for 15 years. Specialising in the sustainability of the built environment, with particular expertise in the circular economy and how this applies to materials, structures and buildings. Her work has covered both increasing the use of reclaimed materials and designing to facilitate future reuse. She has vast experience working in both the public and private sector, in an advisory, client and research capacity, and at all scales from industry-wide initiatives, to focussing on cities, projects, organisations and products. She now leads the sustainability programme at The Concrete Centre and UK Concrete. 

Sophie is Building Systems Engineering Lead at AUAR, a startup automating the design and robotic manufacture of timber frame housing. AUAR is dismantling barriers to sustainable, affordable housing at scale with portable robotic MicroFactories deployed on-site to build timber frame panels from local timber. With a background as a consulting structural engineer, Sophie manages AUAR's manufactured product, guiding robotic development to suit local codes and materials worldwide, and parametrising and automating timber frame panel engineering.  

Steve Denton is Managing Director of WSP’s Civil Engineering unit in UK, leading over 1000 staff.  Steve’s expertise and experience span many facets of engineering and strategic consultancy, research and construction. In addition to his business and project leadership responsibilities, Steve retains a high degree of technical involvement in complex projects. He is an internationally recognised expert in bridge engineering and a global leader in the development and implementation of design standards.

Steve was elected Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2023 for a three-year term.  He is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and Institution of Structural Engineers. Steve led the working group for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s report, ‘Reviving our Ageing Infrastructure’. Steve was the Chairman of CEN/TC 250, the international committee with overall responsibility for the Structural Eurocodes, from 2013 to 2026.

Alexis is an embodied carbon leader with over ten years of structural engineering and construction experience. She serves on the SEI Sustainability Committee steering board, co-authored the SEI Prestandard for the Assessment of Embodied Carbon, and delivered North America’s largest salvaged steel program. Now as Senior Manager of Mass Timber Strategy at Cambium, she applies her technical background to optimize wood supply chains and sourcing outcomes by connecting underutilized timber directly to building projects.

Kerry is a Director at Arup and a built environment leader with more than 30 years' experience delivering major projects. Her work focuses on sustainable development, circular construction, and the practical application of innovative engineering solutions. Kerry is leading the NuBau Labs initiative, which explores new models for material reuse, remanufacturing, and low-carbon logistics. She is passionate about helping shape a future where structures are designed for longevity, adaptability, and resource efficiency.

Kath is an Associate at Engenuiti, with nearly a decade of experience as a structural engineer. Her priorities are the reuse of structures, low-carbon design, and more recently exploring structural steel reuse.
 
She’s studying for a Masters in Sustainability Leadership in the Built Environment at the University of Cambridge and has chosen to write her dissertation on how engineers can make steel reuse more mainstream.

Stephen Hicks is Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Warwick. He has previously held senior management positions at the New Zealand Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA) and the UK Steel Construction Institute (SCI). Stephen is currently serving his second 3-year term as Chair of CEN/TC 250/SC 4, the European committee responsible for Eurocode 4. Throughout his career, he has transferred research to industry from serving on several European, British, Australian and New Zealand standards committees. He has also co-authored many industry design guides, including composite beams with web-openings and floors for occupant-induced vibrations.

Alex is an Associate Director at Webb Yates, where he has developed their specialist knowledge of structural stone design along with other low-carbon and unusual materials. Winner of the IStructE Young Structural Engineer award in 2015 and the IABSE Nethercot Prize in 2022, he is chapter author of the RIBA ‘Materials: An Environmental Primer’ book and currently working on structural stone design guidance. At Webb Yates he leads an internal sustainability group, the Planeteers, as well as working on a wide range of award-winning complex projects, ranging from gravity-defying stone staircases and straw bale school buildings to multi-million pound retrofits, giant moving shade structures and cutting-edge mass timber offices.

Niamh is a chartered structural engineer and environmentalist with 10 years’ experience, her current role is Technical Associate in Sustainability at Curtins. Her structural background spans healthcare and education projects and complex refurbishment schemes, whilst her current role is as the technical lead for project and operational sustainability. Niamh’s focus areas include embodied carbon, circular economy, and driving sustainable business practices across the organisation. Niamh sits on the Institution of Structural Engineers Climate Committee and also the Association of Consulting Engineers Climate Change Group.

Liam is a Senior Associate at Heyne Tillett Steel Structural and Civil Engineers, where he leads the practice's Computational Design Team. He uses digital technology to automate design tasks and optimise low-carbon solutions, freeing engineers to focus on problem solving and creativity. Working with HTS+, he developed the HTS Stockmatcher, a tool for assigning reclaimed steel to new projects, which is freely available online and used by contractors and stockholders across the UK.

Maggie is a structural engineer based in Boston, MA. She is first author on a publication on barriers to embodied carbon reduction in structural engineering practice, which was her research focus during her MEng degree at MIT (2023). She has continued to explore this topic as a structural engineer currently at TYLin’s Building Sector and formerly at Arup. In 2024, she was selected for the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction Fellowship and was further selected for the Emerging Changemaker program in 2025.

Natasha is the Sustainability Co-Lead for UK+ Structures and Ground Engineering for Buro Happold, as well as the UK+ Climate Emergency Change Manager.  These roles support each other in determining and delivering the systemic change needed to tackle the Climate Emergency at an industry level, organisational level, team level, and an individual level.  Alongside the technical aspects of sustainability, she is also interested in wider issues around equity and unconscious bias.

Mark is a structural engineer at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger’s Boston area office. He is a founder and past co-chair of the Structural Engineering Institute’s Sustainability Committee. He is part of the leadership team for the SE 2050 Commitment and is a member of the SE 2050 Resources Group. His structural engineering practice encompasses new design, renovation, and investigation work, with an emphasis on historic buildings. His research work addresses circular economy principles.