Topics and Speakers

Topics

Speakers

Prof. Ioannis Brilakis 

Ioannis Brilakis is a Laing O’Rourke Professor of Construction Engineering and the Director of the Construction Information Technology Laboratory at the Division of Civil Engineering of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He completed his PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign in 2005. He then worked as an Assistant Professor at the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2005-2008) and Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta (2008-2012) before moving to Cambridge in 2012 as a Laing O’Rourke Lecturer. He was promoted to Laing O’Rourke Reader in October 2017 and is a Laing O’Rourke Professor of Construction Engineering since 2021. He has also held visiting posts at the Department of Computer Science, Stanford University as a Visiting Associate Professor of Computer Vision (2014) and at the Technical University of Munich as a Visiting Professor, Leverhulme International Fellow (2018-2019), and Hans Fischer Senior Fellow (2019-2021). He is a recipient of the 2019 ASCE J. James R. Croes Medal, the 2018 ASCE John O. Bickel Award, the 2013 ASCE Collingwood Prize, the 2012 Georgia Tech Outreach Award, the NSF CAREER award, and the 2009 ASCE Associate Editor Award. Prof Brilakis is an author of over 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, an Associate Editor of the ASCE Computing in Civil Engineering, ASCE Construction Engineering and Management, Elsevier Automation in Construction, and Elsevier Advanced Engineering Informatics Journals, and a founder and first Board Chairman of the Board of Directors of the European Council on Computing in Construction.

 

Prof. Fulvio Re Cecconi

Fulvio Re Cecconi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment, and Construction Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. He is a leading researcher and expert in building technology and construction management, with research interests in Asset Management, Whole Life cycle Performance of Building, Building stock retrofit, and Project Risk Management. Currently, he is exploring opportunities for built environment digitalization and Artificial Intelligence application for asset management. He also has a rich professional background as a construction project manager, planning director, and construction safety manager. After 15 years of professional experience in the industry, he returned to academia to share his unparalleled knowledge and experience with the young generation as a professor in building technology, project management, and operation and maintenance management tracks. He is the author of hundreds of publications in accredited journals and conferences, which have received massive recognition from international academic communities.

Dr. Theo Dounas

 

Theo Dounas is an registered and chartered architect and the learning excellence leader at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment at RGU where he directs the MSc in Advanced Architectural Design and orchestrates the school’s efforts in digitization. His research expertise encompasses blockchain, generative and parametric systems with a tight orchestration between design and fabrication.

He is currently directing www.archchain.cc, a project that seeks to establish a decentralised Building Information Modelling toolset and mechanisms for the AEC industry. Additionally he conducts research in design for fabrication and assembly, through a series of projects in robotic fabrication of timber components for buildings.

He has been invited to present his work in numerous universities in Europe, Asia, and Australia. He is a regular external critic in architecture schools in the Scotland and the UK, and a member of the RIAS education committee. He is a member of the technical committee of the construction blockchain consortium and hosted the 2nd research workshop for blockchain in construction at Scott Sutherland School in RGU at March 2021. He is a reviewer for International Journal of Architectural Computing, Automation in Construction, and Architectural Science review.

 

Dr. Fadi Castronovo

 

Fadi Castronovo, Ph.D. is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton in the Built Environment Program. Prior to moving to Brighton, he was an Assistant Professor of Engineering at the California State University East Bay’s Engineering Department in the Construction Management program. His research focuses on the use of innovative technology (such as BIM, virtual and augmented reality) for the enhancement of construction management and engineering delivery process. He has researched the role of immersive virtual reality to improve the delivery process of facilities, starting from the design to the management of the facility. His research has also focused on intersecting with educational psychology, with a special focus on self-regulated learning of Lean Design and Construction practices. Lastly, his main research focus lies in the development and assessment of educational video games for the advancement of STEM education.

 

Dr. Marijana Sreckovic

Marijana Sreckovic has a background in economics and architecture. She holds a Master in International Business Administration from the University of Vienna and a doctoral degree in Social and Economic Sciences from TU Wien, Faculty of Architecture. From 2007-2012 she was a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Real Estate Development and Project Management, Faculty of Architecture. She is involved in research and teaching at the Department of Industrial Building and Interdisciplinary Planning, Faculty of Civil Engineering since 2013. One of her research areas covers innovation, networks, capabilities and the changing fabric of organization in the digital economy, with a focus on the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) industry. Currently she is working on a research project for the optimum metric of innovation. With the MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she has established a research collaboration on the topic of innovation in the built environment. She is a visiting scholar at the MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab and MITDesign X, an accelerator for innovation in the human environment.

 

Dr. Goran Sibenik

Goran Sibenik works as a post-doctoral researcher on the TU Wien in Vienna, Austria. Since 2019 he is investigating possibilities of using Blockchain to further improve the stakeholder communication and protocoling in the design phase within a BIMd.sign project. At the moment, he is involved with the project diCycle, which investigates the use of Blockchain to support the end-of-life phase of buildings. The research focuses on innovative support of digital technologies to facilitate sustainable and transparent demolition and follow-up processes in the architecture, engineering and construction industry.

For his PhD he worked on the topic of Data Exchange between architecture and structural analysis models, with a focus on the open data exchange. Besides that, he was involved in the projects DATAFILTER and AEContologies, which encompass filtering, extended preprocessing and validation of innovative ways of defining building data models. He also has experience working as an architect in Austria.

Goran holds a Doctor of Science degree from TU Wien, Faculty of Civil and Environmental engineering. He pursued the PhD as a collegiate at the Center for Geometry and Computational Design, as well as a research assistant at the Institute of Building and Industrial Construction. He holds a Bachelor degree in Architecture at University of Sarajevo, and a Master degree in Building Science and Technology at TU Wien.

 

Dr. Iro Armeni

Iro Armeni is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at ETH Zurich, at the departments of Civil, Env. and Geomatics Engineering and of Computer Science. She is working with Prof. Daniel Hall, Innovative and Industrial Construction, and with Prof. Marc Pollefeys, Computer Vision and Geometry Lab. She is also part of the Design++ initiative at ETHZ.

 

Iro is interested in interdisciplinary research between Civil Engineering and Machine Perception. Her area of focus is on automated semantic and operational understanding of buildings throughout their life cycle using visual data.

 

Iro completed her Ph.D. at Stanford University on August 2020, Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department, Sustainable Design and Construction (SDC) Program, with a Ph.D. minor at the Computer Science Department. She conducted research under the supervision of Martin Fischer (CEE, Center for Integrated Facility Engineering – CIFE) and Silvio Savarese (Computer Science Department, Stanford Vision and Leanring Lab – SVL). Prior to her Ph.D., she received an MEng in Architecture and Digital Design (University of Tokyo-2011), an MSc in Computer Science (Ionian University-2013), and a Diploma in Architectural Engineering (National Technical University of Athens-2009). She has also worked as an architect and consultant for both the private and public sectors.

 

Dr. Weiwei Chen

Dr Weiwei Chen is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) specializing in Building Information Modelling and Management at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, University College London. She holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and was a postdoctoral researcher at the CIT lab at the University of Cambridge. Dr Chen's research focuses on a variety of areas, including Building Information Modeling, Digital Twins, the Internet of Things, 3D Reconstruction, Information Interoperability, AR/VR, and Facility Management in roads, bridges, buildings and other infrastructures. Currently, she serves as the Deputy Program Leader for the Digital Engineering Management (DEM) program at UCL and contributes to two EU projects as a member of their External Advisory Board. With her expertise, Dr Chen is dedicated to advancing research and education in the field of sustainable construction and digital transformation in construction engineering.