Inaugural Lecture: Professor Vasilis Sarhosis, School of Civil Engineering

Join us for an upcoming Inaugural Lecture on 19 June as we welcome Vasilis Sarhosis, Professor of Resilient Structures and Infrastructure in the School of Civil Engineering.

An inaugural lecture is a significant milestone in any academic’s career, recognising their promotion to Professor. It also offers an opportunity for our new professorial colleagues to showcase their work and innovative research with a broad audience, including members of the public, family, friends, and colleagues. 

This lecture is part of a Faculty-wide series that celebrates those who have joined the University to offer ever greater teaching, research, and expertise across our eight Schools. 

Watch Professor Sarhosis’s Inaugural Lecture “Improving the Resilience of Masonry Structure and Infrastructure”

About this lecture 

Masonry such as bridges, viaducts, and tunnels form a significant part of our critical infrastructure stock. Most of this existing infrastructure is ageing or shows significant signs of deterioration and damage.  

Weathering, demands of increasing load intensity and axle loads, plus factors such as increased frequency of flood events due to climate change have introduced extreme uncertainty in the long-term performance of these assets. Failure of such infrastructure could lead to direct and indirect costs to the economy and society and hamper rescue and recovery efforts. On top of this, much of it has significant heritage and cultural value. 

Professor Sarhosis’s lecture, “Improving the Resilience of Masonry Structure and Infrastructure,” will address recent developments and the future direction of masonry infrastructure resilience when subjected to different environmental conditions and loads – most notably, the novel ways we can identify defects using machine learning and structural assessment through high-fidelity numerical models. It will also bring together information from proven techniques and illustrate these through case studies. 

About our speaker 

Vasilis Sarhosis holds the Chair in Resilient Structures and Infrastructure at the School of Civil Engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineering (FICE), and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).  

He currently chairs the National Scientific Committee on the Analysis and Restoration of Structures of Architectural Heritage in UK (ISCARSAH-UK) which is part of the ICOMOS-UK. His research focuses on the quantification of the degradation of damage in existing masonry infrastructure stock when subjected to different environmental conditions and loads. He works together with industry to develop technologies and tools to reduce maintenance demands and improve the life span of ageing masonry infrastructures and buildings. 

Book your place 

The lecture will take place in the Civil Engineering Building at the University of Leeds, with arrival and registration from 3:45pm in the foyer, and the lecture commencing at 4pm in Lecture Theatre A 1.10. This will be followed by a drinks reception in the foyer from 5pm.  

If you have any questions please contact the EPS CPD, Conference and Events team via cpd@engineering.leeds.ac.uk.