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

geotechnical engineer Geotechnical engineering, also known as geotechnics, is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. It uses the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics to solve its engineering problems. ...

and Emeritus Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

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

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Jesus College was established in 1496 on the site of the twelfth-century Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge, St ...

, from 2001 to 2011 and a fellow of

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College, formally the College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge, is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded by the House of Tudor, Tudor matriarch L ...

, 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 organization, charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters ar ...

and on 1 November 2017 became the Institution's president for 2017–2018, its 200th anniversary year. He was appointed an independent

crossbencher A crossbencher is a minor party or independent member of some legislatures, such as the Parliament of Australia. In the British House of Lords the term refers to members of the parliamentary group of non-political peers. They take their name fr ...

in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

in 2015 where he has been active on matters relating to infrastructure, science and technology, and education. He was a member of its Select Committee on Science and Technology for four years, and has also been a member of Select Committees on Assessment and Management of Risk, and Education and Skills; he is presently Chair of the Science and Technology Committee.

Education

The son of William Austyn Mair, Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Cambridge (1952–1983), Mair was educated at St Faith's and

The Leys School The Leys School is a co-educational private school in Cambridge, England. It is a boarding and day school for about 565 pupils between the ages of eleven and eighteen. The head is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. ...

in Cambridge and went on to study

Engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 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 Unive ...

, graduating in 1972, and returned from industry in 1976 to gain a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree in 1979.

Career

Lord Mair is an authority on

geotechnical engineering Geotechnical engineering, also known as geotechnics, is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. It uses the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics to solve its engineering problems. I ...

, 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 full-time 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's 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 Dockland ...

for

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

, the

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

(now HS1),

Crossrail Crossrail is a completed railway project centred on London. It provides a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system, akin to the Réseau Express Régional, RER in Paris and the S-Bahn systems of German-speaking countries, kn ...

(now the Elizabeth Line) and

HS2 High Speed 2 (HS2) is a high-speed railway which has been under construction in England since 2019. The line's planned route is between Handsacre – in southern Staffordshire – and London, with a branch to Birmingham. HS2 is to be Britain ...

projects. He is known for pioneering compensation grouting as a novel technique for controlling settlement of structures during tunnel construction firstly on the Waterloo Escalator Tunnel Project. The technique was then successfully applied 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, and, by extension, for the clock tower itself, which stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Originally named the Clock Tower, it ...

clock tower at the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative ch ...

. Compensation grouting was also applied on construction of the

Elizabeth Line The Elizabeth line is a railway line that runs across Greater London and nearby towns, operating similarly to the Réseau Express Régional, RER in Paris and the S-Bahn systems of German-speaking countries. It runs services on dedicated infras ...

(formerly Crossrail) and 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 Chairman of the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering Report on Review of Shale Gas and Hydraulic Fracturing, published in 2012. He was a member of the Engineering Expert Panel for Crossrail (now the Elizabeth Line) and is currently performing a similar role for HS2. Following the tragic train derailment in Scotland in August 2020, he was appointed Chair of the Task Force Review of Network Rail's Earthworks Management; the report was published in February 2021. In 2022, he was Chair of the Technical Review Panel appointed by EDF to review the technical risks and opportunities relating to marine works tunnel shaft connections for Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. He has recently chaired similar independent reviews of aspects of Sizewell C nuclear power station, appointed by EDF. Persuaded to return to academia in 1998, when he was 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 regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

1999–2016. 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 Founding 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 UK Res ...

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 network Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) refer to networks of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors that monitor and record the physical conditions of the environment and forward the collected data to a central location. WSNs can measure environmental ...

s, 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 a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE) in 1990, a

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

(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 Fellows 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. He 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. This should not be confused with the biennial BGA Géotech ...

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 ( ...

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 valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two 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 Chris ...

. 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'. He has been awarded Honorary DSc degrees by the Universities of Nottingham and Leeds and by Imperial College, London. 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. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the D ...

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 organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

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 Peers recommended by the House of Lords Appointments Commission 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 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)