Civil and Environmental Engineering

Prof. Lindsay Beevers joined the University of Edinburgh in January 2022 as the Chair in Environmental Engineering. She is a Civil Engineer with over 20 years’ experience and is author to over 50 peer reviewed journal papers in high impact journals, and 6 book chapters.

She has worked both in industry as an engineer (Jacobs 2003-2007) as well as in academia. From 2007-2010 she worked in the Netherlands at UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (now known as IHE Delft) where she was involved in education, capacity building and research projects in river systems across the world. Most of her work was focussed in Africa on the Nile and the Zambezi basins, and Asia on the Mekong river. In 2010 she joined Heriot-Watt University and in 2016 was awarded an EPSRC LWEC Challenge Fellowship to focus on Water Resilient Cities, focussing on climate change uncertainty and how we can adapt to its impacts for UK cities. In addition she was involved in research on climate change impacts to water resources across India, Sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

PhD: Civil Engineering - University of Glasgow: Morphological sustainability of estuarine barrages

M.Eng: Civil Engineering with Geology - University of Glasgow

PGCert: Academic Practice - Heriot Watt University

• BEng, Civil Engineering, University of Liverpool
• MSc, Highway and Traffic Engineering, University of Birmingham
• PhD, University of Birmingham

• FIEE, Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers
• FIHT, Fellow of the Institute of Highways & Transportation
• FINDT, Fellow of the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing
• CEng, Chartered Engineer
• FREng, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• FICE, Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers

• Geotechnics: Earthworks & Site Investigation
• Non-destructive testing (NDT) of concrete and masonry - bridges & structures - radar, sonics, ultrasonic tomography, acoustic emission (AE)

• Director: Institute for Research in Engineering, University of Edinburgh
• Editor: Journal: "Construction & Building Materials", Elsevier Science

Dr. Chris Beckett joined the School in early 2017. His research interests are the advanced geotechnical and structural characterisation of stabilised and unstabilised unsaturated soils used as construction materials; geotechnical characterisation of agricultural soil constraints (compaction and water repellency); and centrifugal scale modelling of soil structural behaviour. He lectures in Foundation Engineering and holds an Adjunct Reseach Fellow position at the University of Western Australia.

PhD in Geotechnical Engineering, Durham University (2011)

MEng (hons) in Civil Engineering, First Class, Durham University (2008)

• Chair: Standards Australia Committee BD-083 Earth Building
• Member: RILEM TC 274-TCE Testing and characterisation of earth-based building materials and elements

• PhD in Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete
• MSc in Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete
• Diploma (BEng/MEng) in Chemical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

• Year 4/5, Water and Wastewater Systems 4
• Year 3, Conceptual Design and Sustainability 3
• Year 2, Environmental Engineering and Sustainability 2

• Wastewater treatment
• Water disinfection
• Environmental sustainability
• Advanced oxidation processes
• Photocatalysis
• Electrolysis
• Life cycle assessment
• Microplastics

Andrea has a first degree in Chemical Engineering at the Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa, Portugal, followed by an Industrial Placement at Fujifilm, former Avecia in Grangemouth working on dye purification for inkjet printers using membrane technology.

During her PhD in Environmental Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, she carried out extensive research focused on the removal of organic and inorganic trace contaminants from water (e.g. hormones, pesticides, uranium) using membrane technology. She subsequently participated in the AFFIRM project “Analysis of biofilm mediated fouling of nanofiltration membranes” funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the EU Framework Programme 7 (project 278530; Total budget: €1.5M) in Ireland as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow between 2012 and 2013. The work focused in understanding bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation on nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes.

Andrea’s current research projects focus on developing new technologies and materials for sustainable desalination, water and wastewater treatment processes with the aim of recovering a high yield of resources such as potable water, bioenergy and chemicals. Her projects involve:

• Water and wastewater remediation with biochar from waste in collaboration with the Biochar Centre in the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh
• Aquaculture wastewater bioremediation with algae and other living organisms for the recovery of water, biomass and bioenergy in collaboration with Scottish Association for Marine Science and Aquaculture Industries;
• Desalination, water and wastewater treatment with membrane technology and novel nanomaterials;
• Molecular level characterisation of dissolved organic matter for improved water treatment in collaboration with the School of Chemistry, the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh and Scottish Water.

Andrea’s research results have been published in several journals such as Water Research, Environmental Science and Technology, Advances in Colloid and Interface Science and Journal of Membrane Science.

2005 Five-year Diploma degree in Chemical Engineering, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Technical University of Lisbon (equivalent to 1^st honours MEng)

2011 PhD in Environmental Engineering at the University of Edinburgh on the study of the adsorption and removal of endocrine disruptors by nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membrane processes.

• Water Resources 2 (CIVE08021)
• Water and Wastewater Systems 3 (CIVE09026)
• Group Design Project (Potable Water Supply) (SCEE11003)

• Postdoctoral Research Fellow (School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering) University College Dublin

• MSc Structural Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 2004
• PhD Mechanics, National Technical University of Athens, 2008
• MEng Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 2002

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

• The Finite Elemenent Method
• Soil Mechanics
• Geotechnical Engineering
• Engineering Mathematics

• Mechanics of generalised continua
• Micromechanics of materials
• Computational Mechanics
• Mechanics of geomaterials

• PhD, Structural Engineering, Queen's University (Canada), 2003
• MSc (Eng), Structural Engineering, Queen's University (Canada), 1999
• BEng, Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics, McGill University, 1997

Engineering Education

I have an ongoing interest in improving student ownership of and engagement in education in engineering, and have been involved in various engineering design, professional skills development, and curriculum reform initiatives.