Finalists announced for the Young Structural Engineering Professional Award 2023

Robert Jones

Rob is a passionate structural engineer with over 6 years' experience in delivering high end technically demanding projects in various sectors in the London area and internationally. During this time, he’s developed a strong interest in finding technical solutions to provide the most efficient solution to the projects challenges. 
 
Rob graduated from Bristol University in 2016 with a Master’s in Civil Engineering with a year abroad at UC Davis. Upon graduating he joined AKT II in London, where he has worked on a large range of projects both in scale, use and location.
 
This include Regents Crescent, a luxury residential development. This projection involved multiple complex interfaces with both a Grade I listed façade and a historic icehouse discovered below the proposed structure. As well these challenges, there were two residential blocks within the development, which were occupied throughout the construction.
 
More recently, Rob has been heavily involved in the Oxford North development. This has a large number of life sciences building which have ambitious targets for both the level of performance required and minimising the embodied carbon within the structure.
 
Outside of his project work, Rob is involved in supporting final year engineering students at Bristol University and providing training and guidance to junior engineers internally. This includes supporting others on their journey to chartership with the Institute, having recently become a member in 2023.
 
He also is involved in research projects to help to enhance our understanding into the performance of structures so that we can design more efficiently in the future  
 
Rob believes that as a structural engineer, we play a key role in delivering buildings that are fit for both the current and future demands in push for a low carbon built environment. 

 

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Richard Walmsley

Having graduated from the University of Salford in 2021 with a first class master’s degree in Civil and Architectural Engineering, Richard currently works as a graduate structural engineer at HBL Associates.
 
As a student, Richard has won multiple awards including the 2019 IStructE Young Members Award, the 2020 ICE Student Prize and the University of Salford Melbourne Prize for Bridge Engineering.
 
Whilst at HBL Associates, Richard has worked on a variety of different projects across the residential, leisure, waste processing and commercial sectors. He is a member of the HBL Sustainability committee, and his main interests are in projects focusing on environmental and social sustainability.

 

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Chiara Bariviera

Chiara is a skilled structural engineer with 4.5 years of experience working on technically challenging projects. Her passion for sustainable design has been a driving force in her career, and she has made significant contributions to the development of embodied carbon tools and holistic sustainable design approaches within her team.

Since graduating from UCL, Chiara has been dedicated to promising sustainable design principles and developing tools to help her colleagues and peers assess and evaluate the embodied carbon of structures, as well as contributing to the industry round tables discussions. Her dedication and leadership culminated in the creation of the ECO CO2 Revit plug-in, which has been freely shared with over 60 other engineering companies worldwide, empowering engineers to make informed decisions and improve their impact. This innovative tool has been recognized with the award for Net Zero Team of the Year in 2022 at the Construction News Awards.

In addition to her work on sustainable design, Chiara has worked on over 25 projects, ranging from mass timber office buildings to museums and refurbishment of listed residential buildings, spanning across different countries and languages. She always collaborates closely with architects and contractors to contribute to coordinated designs and ensure that her projects are successful. She is an integral part of her team: championing sustainable design and member of the EDI committee, and is constantly developing her skills and working towards her chartership.

Outside of work, Chiara is passionate about travelling and exploring alternative methods and cultures of construction. Most recently, she attended a bamboo design and constructon course in Indonesia, expanding her knowledge and skills in sustainable construction practices.

 

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Lukas Ziak

Lukas graduated from Imperial College London with a first-class MEng degree in Civil Engineering. As an ICE QUEST Scholar, he undertook a diverse array of summer internships – gaining insights into large-scale infrastructure projects and spending 12 weeks on Royal Academy of Arts site.

Since joining Eckersley O'Callaghan in 2018, he has worked on projects of various scale, predominantly in the education sector, each with a different nature of engineering challenges. The most significant one, London South Bank University – London Road Building, won the 2023 AJ Retrofit Award and the 2022 IStructE Structural Award for transformative sustainable design. Lukas was involved in the design of new steelwork additions and calculations to verify the existing structure.

His strongest asset is the use of structural analysis software, exploring its capabilities and limitations, and understanding how adopted assumptions affect structural behaviour – having completed numerous sensitivity studies. Lukas has applied his skills to modelling of high-rise RC buildings, lightweight steel frames (including their response to human-induced vibrations) and a complex façade support system on a hybrid skyscraper in Sydney, Australia.

Outside of work, he volunteered to analyse a cyclone-resistant timber frame school in Vanuatu.
His most recent projects are City of London School for Boys' extension in London and the TUMO Convergence Centre, a new learning hub in Yerevan, Armenia. Lukas has been tasked with carrying out seismic analysis, as part of a team completing detailed design of concrete trusses with dramatic 30-meter cantilevers. 
Lukas is enthusiastic about structural engineering, both within and outside of the industry, and has recently become a Chartered Member of the IStructE. Fully on board with the expansion of structural engineers' role into more sustainable design, he has been participating in embodied carbon conversations / assessments and researching innovative low-carbon concrete products and timber design precedents.

 

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Matt Penellum

After growing up on a hill sheep farm in the Lake District, Matt studied Engineering at the University of Cambridge, graduating with a first class degree in ‘Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering’. His Master’s thesis, which was published in 2018, focussed on the potential of engineered bamboo as a structural material.

After graduating in 2017, Matt joined AECOM as a graduate engineer in their St Albans office. He became a chartered member of the IStructE in March 2022 and is now a Principal Engineer.


Over the past 6 years, Matt has worked predominantly on the forensic assessment of existing reinforced concrete buildings and is a member of AECOM’s reinforced concrete ‘Subject Matter Expert’ group. In this role, he is responsible for developing guidance documents for the company, and has worked with academics and experts from the wider industry to develop technical guidance specifically tailored to the analysis of existing RC frames.
He also has experience in the conservation, restoration, and transformation of historic buildings. He has been fortunate enough to work on the refurbishment of some of the UK’s most iconic Grade 1 listed buildings, including Norman Shaw North (the original Scotland Yard police headquarters) and the Elizabeth Tower (better known as Big Ben).

Matt is currently training with SARAID, a UK-based charity that provides disaster zone Search and Rescue expertise and humanitarian relief in the UK and oversees. Once his training as a qualified ‘Urban Search and Rescue Technician’ is complete, he will be able to be deployed to disaster zones to provide structural engineering advice to the rescue teams as well as undertaking rescue operations.

 

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Sharjeel Larik

Sharjeel is a passionate structural engineer currently working at Mott MacDonald Hong Kong as a Principle Structural Engineer in the Bridges and Civil Structures team and structural design lead for the Hong Kong Airport Authority consultancy project 3138, Automated People Mover (APM) and Baggage Handling System (BHS) Tunnels and Ancillary Buildings, comprising of a 2.5km cut-and-cover tunnel, 5 ancillary buildings, and alteration and addition (A&A) works in the existing tunnels. His diligent work, problem-solving attitude, and client management skills on the project qualified him to take up this role even as a young engineer.

He graduated with a BEng in Civil Engineering and started working at Arup Hong Kong. During his 5+ year career at Arup, he worked on a variety of large-scale multidisciplinary projects such as the Organic Waste Treatment Facility Phase 1, Lantau, Hong Kong, and the Galaxy Cotai Resort Phase 3, Macau, among other residential and commercial projects. During his employment, he also did a part-time MSc in Structural Engineering, with his dissertation focusing on the structural behaviour and design of thin-shelled reinforced concrete dome structures.
For over a year, he was also deployed as an assistant resident engineer in Macau to monitor and carry out quality supervision on fast-paced hotel/casino construction sites during site formation, foundations, ELS and basement, and superstructure works in both steel and reinforced concrete, including post-tensioned concrete and steel-RC composite structures.

Sharjeel is interested in digital development and technical excellence to promote best practices. He has completed the Global BIM Manager course and is currently taking up the role of Digital Champion for the Mott MacDonald Bridges and Civil Structures practice in the Greater China region. He is a major advocate of equality, diversity, and inclusion and has championed EDI initiatives during his employment. Sharjeel also works actively in mentoring junior engineers and preparing them for the chartership review, as well as promoting passion in engineering. He loves the idea of total engineering and efficiency in design and advocates this ideology in all his designs and projects as part of lean and sustainable engineering.