The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Ioannis Brilakis as the next Chair of CEE, effective January 2027. Concurrently, Prof Brilakis has been appointed to the position of President’s Chair in Civil and Information Engineering.

Prof Brilakis succeeds Professor Chu Jian, who has stepped down on 30 June 2026. The School extends its gratitude to Professor Lim Teik Thye for his dedicated leadership and service as the Acting Chair of CEE.

About Prof Ioannis Brilakis

Prof Brilakis is a Laing O'Rourke Professor of Civil and Information Engineering in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. Prof Brilakis also serves as Director of Construction Information Technology at the University’s Laing O’Rourke Centre for Construction Engineering and Technology, and is Principal Investigator of the Digital Roads of the Future Initiative, which explores how digital twins, smart materials and robotic monitoring can be integrated to develop safer and more resilient road infrastructure systems.

A world-renowned expert in construction information technology and digital twins for the built environment, Prof Brilakis brings over 20 years of academic experience spanning institutions in Greece, the United States and the United Kingdom. Before joining Cambridge in 2012, he held faculty positions at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Beyond academia, Prof Brilakis serves as President of the International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction and founded the European Council for Computing in Construction. He has also co-founded two start-ups.