Robert James Mair, Baron Mair, (born 20 April 1950) is a

geotechnical engineer Geotechnical engineering is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. It uses the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics for the solution of its respective engineering problems. It als ...

and Emeritus Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering and director of research at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. He is Head of the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC). He was Master of

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

, from 2001 to 2011 and a fellow of

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corpo ...

, from 1998 to 2001. In 2014 he was elected a vice president of the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

and on 1 November 2017 became the Institution's president for 2017–18, its 200th anniversary year. He was appointed an independent

crossbencher A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and oppositi ...

in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

in 2015 and is currently a member of its

Select Committee on Science and Technology The Science and Technology Select Committee is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The original Science and Technology Committee was abolished upon the creation of the Innovation, Universities, Scie ...

Education

The son of William Austyn Mair,

Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering The Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering is a professorship in the University of Cambridge. It was established in 1919 as a result of a benefaction from Emile Mond, in memory of his son Francis who had been educated at Peterhouse and ...

at the University of Cambridge (1952–1983), Mair was educated at

St Faith's ST, St, or St. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Stanza, in poetry * Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band * Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise * Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy an ...

and

The Leys School The Leys School is a co-educational independent school in Cambridge, England. It is a day and boarding school for about 574 pupils between the ages of eleven and eighteen, and a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. Histo ...

in Cambridge and went on to study

Engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refounded ...

, gaining a MA degree in 1975 and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

degree in 1979.

Career

Lord Mair is an authority on

geotechnical engineering Geotechnical engineering is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. It uses the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics for the solution of its respective engineering problems. It als ...

, which is the application of the science of soil and rock mechanics, engineering geology and other related disciplines to civil engineering design and construction. His particular speciality is the design and construction of tunnels. His expertise has been sought throughout the world on numerous civil engineering projects involving soft ground tunnelling, retaining structures, deep excavations and foundations. Prior to his appointment to a Chair at Cambridge in 1998, he worked in industry for 27 years. He was Principal Engineer for

Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick Scott Wilson Group plc was a global integrated design and engineering consultancy with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. Founded as a civil engineering firm in 1951, the company broadened its range of services through acquisitions. Scott ...

, working in their London and Hong Kong offices, 1971–1983; he was seconded to the

, 1976–1979 to research tunnelling in soft ground. In 1983 he founded the Geotechnical Consulting Group, an international consulting company based in London, with co-founders Dr David Hight and the late Professor Peter Vaughan. He has been responsible for advising on geotechnical and tunnelling aspects of numerous major engineering projects world-wide. In the UK he advised on the design and construction of the

Jubilee Line Extension The Jubilee Line Extension (JLE) is the extension of the London Underground Jubilee line from to through south and east London. An eastward extension of the line was first proposed in the 1970s. As part of the development of London Docklands, ...

for

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...

, the

Channel Tunnel Rail Link High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; ...

(now HS1),

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway ...

and

HS2 High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned high-speed railway line in England, the first phase of which is under construction in stages and due for completion between 2029 and 2033, depending on approval for later stages. The new line will run from its m ...

projects. He is known for introducing compensation grouting as a novel technique for controlling settlement of structures during tunnel construction on the Waterloo Escalator Tunnel Project. He successfully used the technique on the Jubilee Line Extension project for the protection of many historic buildings, including the

Big Ben Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England, and the name is frequently extended to refer also to the clock and the clock tower. The officia ...

clock tower at the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...

. Compensation grouting is now widely used around the world. International projects on which he has advised have included railway and metro tunnels in Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Bologna, Florence, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Rome, Singapore and Warsaw, and motorway tunnels in Bolu, Turkey. He was a member of the French Government Commission of Enquiry into the Collapse of the Toulon Tunnel, 1997. From 2007 to 2014 he was Co-Chairman of the Singapore Government's International Advisory Board on design and construction aspects of all its underground metro and road tunnels. Lord Mair was a member of Crossrail's Engineering Expert Panel and is a member of the Expert Technical Panel of the National Infrastructure Commission. He was Chairman of the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering Report on Review of Shale Gas and Hydraulic Fracturing, published in 2012. Persuaded to return to academia in 1998, when appointed to a Chair in Engineering at the University of Cambridge, he championed industry-focused research and grew the Geotechnical and Environmental Research Group into one of the largest in its field in the world. He was the Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering 2011-2017 and was Head of

Civil Engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

1999–2016. Mair organised the successful £2m bid for a Joint Infrastructure Award for the construction and equipping of the Centre for Geotechnical Process and Construction Modelling adjacent to the centrifuge facility on the West Cambridge site, which is part of the Schofield Centre. He led the establishment in 2010 of the Laing O'Rourke Centre for Construction Engineering and Technology at Cambridge, a partnership between the

and

Laing O’Rourke Laing O'Rourke is a multinational construction company headquartered in Dartford, England. It was founded in 1978 by Ray O'Rourke. It is the largest privately owned construction company in the United Kingdom. History The company was founded by ...

– the UK's largest private construction company – to set up a multi-disciplinary academic centre to leverage innovative thinking to benefit the construction industry. Lord Mair is Head of the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) at the University of Cambridge, an Innovation and Knowledge Centre funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and

Innovate UK Innovate UK is the United Kingdom's innovation agency, which provides money and support to organisations to make new products and services. It is a non-departmental public body operating at arm's length from the Government as part of the United ...

and industry to a total value of £22m. CSIC specialises in sensor technologies and data analysis models, working with industry and partner organisations to accelerate implementation of research outputs to transform infrastructure through smarter information. Its work involves developing new technologies for streamlining construction and for condition assessment and monitoring of ageing infrastructure, with a focus on the development of wireless sensor networks, MEMS technologies and new fibre optic sensing technology. CSIC has around 50 industry partners and has deployed innovative sensor technologies (notably fibre optics and wireless sensors) on around 100 different sites. In 2015 he was responsible for securing £18m Government funding for 50 per cent of the cost of the new Civil Engineering Building on the

West Cambridge West Cambridge is a university site to the west of Cambridge city centre in England. As part of the ''West Cambridge Master Plan'', several of the University of Cambridge's departments have relocated to the West Cambridge site from the centre ...

site of the

Engineering Department An engine department or engineering department is an organizational unit aboard a ship that is responsible for the operation, maintenance, and repair of the propulsion systems and the support systems for crew, passengers, and cargo. These includ ...

as part of the UK Collaboratorium on Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) initiative. The £38m building, which opened in 2019, contains the National Research Facility for Infrastructure Sensing (NRFIS). In 2020, Mair was appointed chair of the board at One CAM, the company responsible for delivering the

Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro The Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro (CAM) was a rapid transit proposal in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It suggested that the project would be delivered between 2023 and 2029. Proposed by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority mayor Jam ...

Honours and awards

Mair was elected as a

Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

(FICE) in 1990, a

Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK and from aroun ...

(FREng) in 1992, and a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) in 2007. Mair delivered the 46th

Rankine Lecture The Rankine lecture is an annual lecture organised by the British Geotechnical Association named after William John Macquorn Rankine, an early contributor to the theory of soil mechanics Soil mechanics is a branch of soil physics and applied m ...

of the

British Geotechnical Association The British Geotechnical Association is a learned 'Associated Society' of the Institution of Civil Engineers,ICE Associated Societies newsletter, Spring/Summer 2011 (Accessed: 19 July 2013) based in London, England, and a registered UK charity (N ...

in 2006, and was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(CBE) in the

2010 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2010 were announced on 31 December 2009 in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Cook Islands, Barbados, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Saint Lucia, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Christopher and NevisSaint Christ ...

. Mair has been awarded numerous research grants by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). He was awarded the Institution of Civil Engineers Gold Medal in 2004, their President's Medal in 2013 and their Crampton Prize in 2006 and 2015. He has given many invited lectures around the world, including the flagship annual Hinton Lecture of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2015 titled 'Creating underground infrastructure – the role of geotechnical engineering'. On 29 October 2015, he was created a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

with the title Baron Mair, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridgeshire. In February 2019, Mair was elected a foreign member of the US

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

for contributions to underground construction and smart infrastructure and for leadership in government, engineering practice, research, and education.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mair, Robert Crossbench life peers People's peers Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge Masters of Jesus College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Rankine Lecturers People educated at The Leys School 1950 births Presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers Life peers created by Elizabeth II Professors of engineering (Cambridge)