14th Brunel International Lecture Series: Europe

Piero Pelizzaro

David Porter

David Porter is current ICE Senior Vice President. Porter is a trustee of the ICE and, until recently, held the learning society portfolio.

Porter is currently the director of engineering with the Department for Infrastructure (DfI), which is the roads authority for Northern Ireland. He’s the chief highways engineer.

He is also the head of the civil engineering profession with the Northern Ireland civil service.

He’s responsible for the development of the department’s professional and technical staff, engineering policies and standards, and health and safety. He also leads on procurement and the internal consultancy.

Previously, Porter was the chief executive of the Rivers Agency, the flood defence and drainage authority for Northern Ireland. He also held the posts of director of development and director of operations with the agency.

Porter is a past chair of the Northern Ireland region of the ICE. He’s been on the ICE Council three times: two terms as the Northern Ireland representative, and one as a general member.

He has also served on numerous committees and panels:

• He was a member of the Presidential Commission on the ICE Governance (the Orr Review).
• He chaired the member-led review of NOMCO, the Audit Committee, and the Qualifications Panel.
• He has been on the Committee of Management of the ICE Benevolent Fund.

Amongst various distinctions, Porter is a Fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering, was awarded the Poskitt Medal by the ICE Northern Ireland Region in 2017, and the Engineers Ireland President’s Award in 2018.

Lucie Anderton

As Head of Sustainability at the International Union of Railways (UIC), Lucie leads the Environmental technical topics as well as global advocacy for rail as a climate solution.

UIC is the global association of railway organisations. On secondment from Network Rail, the UK Rail Infrastructure manager, Lucie has 18 years of experience in sustainability policy and environmental management in the rail industry and major infrastructure projects.

Jeanette Muñoz Abela

Having studied Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Malta, Jeanette went on to read for a Masters and PhD in Structural Engineering at Imperial College London. At the same institution, Jeanette also held a Post-Doctoral position and gained teaching experience working with both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Over the years, Jeanette has worked on numerous projects in various roles in both the UK and Malta. Her projects varied from stadium roofs (London Olympics main stadium legacy period, UK) to bridge design (Osman Ghazi Bridge, Turkey), medium-rise towers (Tipico Building, Malta) and hotels (Dolmen and Hilton Hotels. Malta), museums (Gozo Museum, Malta) and various residential projects. Jeanette is founding director of Bureau 105, where she focuses on the design of human-centred sustainable projects, involving community participatory design and structurally optimised solutions. She is also a co-host of ‘The Human Agenda’ podcast targeted at increasing sustainability and regenerative design processes and thoughts of the general public.

Moreover, Jeanette is also active in research and lecturing at the University of Malta within the Faculty for the Built Environment. Her areas of interest are instability of structures, topology optimisation of structures, and the interdisciplinary approach in the fusion of architecture and engineering by way of enhancing the experience and well-being of the ultimate user of the project. As part of her university commitment, Jeanette also sits on the University Senate (2019-2021), the Faculty Board (2019 – to date) and the Doctoral Committee (2019 – to date).

She is a council member of the Kamra tal-Periti (KTP) since 2016 where she acts as representative on the European Council of Civil Engineers (ECCE), Fédération Européenne d'Associations Nationales d'Ingénieurs (FEANI) and Inġiniera Malta in their General Assemblies as well as a member of the union Internationale des Architects (UIA) Committee "International Women in Architecture". Jeanette is also the Chair of the Permanent Committee on Engineering (Malta) and national representative of the International Association of Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE).

Stefan Köhler

Stefan has an educational background in Geotechnical Engineering, Law, and Business Economics. He has 35 years’ experience working in the development context in multiple countries, including small Island states, with a focus on infrastructure.

His work has largely focused on the strategic development aspects of infrastructure related to planning, design, implementation, operations, and maintenance of infrastructure, including the cross-cutting themes of asset management, sustainability, resilience, climate change and gender. He has worked in various sectors including government, NGO, private sector, and international organizations across multiple sectors including health, education, WASH, and Power.

In November 2014 Stefan joined UNOPS HQ and took on the role as head of the DRR for resilience program. He led UNOPS participation in the Sendai Conference on DRR. In March 2015, UNOPS was nominated as Chair of the International Recovery Platform (IRP) and Stefan fulfilled this role on behalf of UNOPS until March 2018. In January 2018, Stefan took the role as Country Manager for Bangladesh. Stefan currently lives in Hungary with his wife and has 2 daughters. His personal interests include open water swimming, photography, and biodynamic gardening/farming.