Dr Francesco Pugliese

Profile

• PhD, University of Liverpool (2022). Title Reliability assessment and seismic vulnerability analysis of ageing reinforced concrete structures with plain rebars

Dr. Francesco Pugliese (PhD, MRes, MREEES, MEnG, MICE) joined the University of Leeds in 2024 as a Lecturer in Structural Engineering/Design. Previously, he served as Lecturer in Civil Engineering at the University of Greenwich and previously as an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Award Fellow at the University of Nottingham. Dr. Pugliese holds a PhD in Civil and Seismic Engineering from the University of Liverpool, focusing on the reliability assessment and seismic vulnerability analysis of ageing reinforced concrete structures with plain rebars. He also holds a Master of Research (First Class with Distinction) in Decision Making under Risk and Uncertainty. Additionally, he obtained an advanced Master's degree in Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology from a consortium of universities including Patras, Pavia, Ankara, and Grenoble. He also holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil and environmental engineering, both earned with honours from the Second University of Naples (Aversa, Italy).

Dr. Pugliese is actively involved in several professional and scientific organizations related to Civil and Earthquake Engineering. He contributes as a member of the Review Committee and Technical Secretariat for national and international conferences and serves as a reviewer for peer-reviewed journals in these fields and for the UKRI (EPSRC-NERC). Dr. Pugliese has authored and co-authored numerous technical articles published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Currently, he holds an associate member status at the University of Nottingham, UK, affiliated with the Resilience Engineering Research Group, where he collaborates with Prof. John Andrews and Dr. Darren Prescott (Since 2022 - after the EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship ). Additionally, he is an associate member of the Earthquake and Geotechnical Engineering team at the University of Bristol, UK, collaborating with Dr. Raffaele De Risi and Dr. Flavia De Luca (Earthquake and Geotechnical Engineering).

Responsibilities

• Study Abroad Coordinator for the School of Civil Engineering
• Deputy Leader of the Materials and Structures Research Group

Research interests

Dr. Pugliese's research interests span a range of topics including: risk asset management of ageing critical infrastructure under the effects of climate change, reliability assessment of existing reinforced concrete (RC) structures and infrastructure under climate change effects, development of new methodologies for assessing the residual capacity of aged RC components, seismic risk analysis of aged RC structures subjected to various earthquake scenarios for decision-making strategies, experimental and numerical studies of artificially and naturally corroded steel reinforcing bars under monotonic and cyclic loading, machine learning and artificial intelligence applications to real case studies, and the development of probabilistic approaches for time-dependent phenomena.

Research groups / institutes

• Materials and Structures Research Group, School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds

• Centre for Infrastructure Materials, University of Leeds

• Priestley Centre for Climate Futures, University of Leeds

• Leeds Institute for Data Analytics — LIDA

• Neville Centre of Excellence in Cement and Concrete Engineering (Leeds)

• Resilience Engineering Research Group (University of Nottingham)

• Earthquake and Geotechnical Engineering (University of Bristol

Selected funded research

EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship — RAMACI
Principal Investigator, 2022–2024, £200,000
Risk Asset Management of Ageing Critical Infrastructure under Climate Change, focusing on deterioration modelling and decision support for ageing infrastructure under climate stressors.

Industrial Scholarship — Jacobs Engineering
2020–2022, £25,000
Risk analysis of reinforced-concrete nuclear containment and storage structures with ageing effects, including structural reliability and assessment of ageing RC components.

British Academy Early Career Researcher Network
Lead applicant, 2024, £5,000
Artificially induced accelerated ageing of plain reinforcing bars, with focus on fatigue behaviour under variable stress conditions.

University of Bristol Pump Priming
Co-Investigator, 2022–2023, £2,926.19
Experimental investigation of artificially aged plain reinforcing bars, including monotonic and cyclic tests.

Awards and distinctions

• Nominated for Teacher of the Year Award, School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, 2026.
• Ground Engineering Award 2022 — International Project of the Year, for the EEFIT Haiti 2021 mission (Link ).
• Most Popular Journal Article, Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 2022–2025 (Link ).
• Best Paper Award, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, 2023.

Qualifications

• PhD in Civil and Seismic Engineering from the University of Liverpool
• MRes in Decision Making Under Risk & Uncertainty, University of Liverpool
• MEEES, Advanced Master in Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology, University of Pavia
• MEng, Master in Civil and Environmental Engineering
• BEng, Bachelor in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Professional memberships

• Membership of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE, Structural Engineering Institute). ID: 12220665
• Membership of the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) ID: 92445268
• Membership of the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE). ID: 088420796
• Membership of The Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) (This body is part of the IStructE membership)
• Membership of the Fib International – Young Member Group

Student education

Currently, and also previously, assigned to teaching modules within the key civil engineering subject areas of:

• Structural Analysis (CIVE2360, formerly CIVE2780 Structural Design and Materials 1)

• Dynamics of Structures

• Earthquake Engineering

• Research and Design Project Work

• Design Optimisation (CIVE5971M – MSc)

I am currently the Module Leader for CIVE2360 Structural Analysis 1 and CIVE5971M Design Optimisation (MSc).

Current postgraduate researchers

• Salvatore Chirivi