Biography
Deborah is the Group Research Director at the Building Research Establishment (BRE), leading the delivery of the £20M current active research and publications work at BRE and its 5 University Centres of Excellence. This also encompasses the BRE Trust Future Cities programme, which now has over 70 partners from academia, industry and public sector with a collective value of £30M.
She is also the Director of the Modern Built Environment Knowledge Transfer Network (MBEKTN), which now has over 15,000 members from government, industry and academia. The overarching remit of both the MBEKTN and the BRE Trust is to provide leadership and support to the wider UK built environment supply chain, developing and harnessing innovation for transformational change to support international growth. Deborah’s role enables her to align activities that she has direct responsibility for and also that of others where she has influence.
She has a PhD in polymer chemistry, is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials. After completing 3 further years of post-doctoral research Deborah has worked at a number of government and private technology organisations leading research teams focused on high performance material applications across a range of sectors including defence, aerospace, oil & gas, autosport and marine. Deborah recently completed a post-graduate certificate in sustainable business at Cambridge University.
