Committee

Professor Phil Blythe

Phil Blythe is professor of intelligent transport systems at Newcastle University, where he leads the Future Mobility Group. His research focuses on the interface between policy and technology in areas such as: connected and autonomous vehicles; electro-mobility; decarbonising transport; resilience; and age-friendly, accessible transport. 

From 2015-21, Blythe was chief scientific adviser for the Department for Transport (DfT), focusing on the use of scientific and engineering evidence in policy-making and ensuring the DfT was informed about innovations and technologies affecting the delivery of transport schemes and policy. He also led the team that developed scientific advice for the restart and recovery of transport in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic and was a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) throughout.

Currently, Blythe leads DARe – the national hub for decarbonised, adaptable and climate resilient transport Infrastructure. He was awarded a CBE in 2022 for services to science and engineering in transport and government.

David Boyer

David Boyer is a retired senior local government officer with 38 years’ experience of project and service delivery in transport, highways, regeneration, environmental and regulatory areas of the public sector.  

In his last role, Boyer’s directorate delivered projects and programmes including the electrification of a town’s bus fleet; substantial transport and highways infrastructure, with a focus on sustainable measures; and major flood management/mitigation projects.  

Boyer is a Chartered Civil Engineer and Chartered Environmentalist. He chairs the ICE’s North West Transport and Engineering Group and sits on the ICE’s North West regional committee. He is also a member of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM). 

Kris Campbell

Kris Campbell is the head of the Highways Structures Unit in the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. He has a strong interest in bridges and the effective management of historic and aging infrastructure, while also undertaking the role of the department’s heritage officer. He is a chartered civil engineer with the ICE and is an active supervising civil engineer and training scheme administrator for the ICE training scheme. A chartered manager with the Chartered Management Institute, he is also undertaking a part-time PhD research project into the development of a novel bridge scour sensor.

Mark Coates

A former quantity surveyor, Mark Coates started out in the construction industry more than 35 years ago. He has worked for organisations including Crossrail, Highways England, ICI, the Olympic Delivery Authority, Thames Water and United Utilities.

At Bentley Systems, Coates advises government and business decision-makers around the world on the benefits of digital transformation. He has worked on a range of infrastructure projects over the past 15 years, advising asset owners on the best technologies to use to optimise what these deliver under the given budgetary and scheduling constraints.

Coates chairs the international forum of industry body British Water and is a member of the Digital Twin Hub’s strategic board. He sits on the Institute of Government and Public Policy’s advisory board and the ICE’s Inspiring Engineering Excellence community advisory board.

Coates is also a trustee of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors and a member of its council of management.

Isabel Coman

Named by the Financial Times as one of the 100 most influential women in engineering, Isabel Coman has been director of engineering and asset strategy at TfL since September 2022. An ICE Fellow, she has spent more than two decades in the profession, working on railway infrastructure projects including Crossrail and HS2.

Coman is passionate about encouraging more women into the transport sector and improving its diversity and inclusiveness. She aspires to have a “highly visible leadership presence” with a view to inspiring and empowering a new generation of engineers.

Martin Frobisher

Martin Frobisher leads the technical authority team that sets Network Rail’s national strategy, policies and standards. He has a range of responsibilities, including engineering, the environment, safety, security and research. 

Having started his career in the chemical industry with ICI, Frobisher has worked in the railway sector for 26 years in a range of roles. He was previously managing director of Network Rail’s London North Western route, which runs from Euston and Marylebone via the Chiltern and West Midlands regions and the North West of England to Gretna on the Scottish border. 

Frobisher also serves as a non-executive director for the Rail Safety and Standards Board and works with the International Union of Railways. 

In 2021 he was awarded an OBE in recognition of his work in response to the Covid crisis, which included delivering Nightingale hospitals, and his service in the Army Reserve.

Dr Hameed Jehanfo

Dr Hameed Jehanfo is a chartered civil engineer and independent highways consultant, operating through the company he founded in 2019, Deep Spark. 
 
He has more than 20 years’ experience in technical design, engineering management and project governance on infrastructure works of all sizes around the world. His current engagements include providing designs and technical assurance for highways authorities in the UK. 
 
Jehanfo also conducts research, writing technical papers on topics ranging from sustainability to self-driving vehicles.
 
He is a visitor at the Transportation Research Group of the University of Southampton, where he obtained his doctorate in sustainable infrastructure systems. He is also a visiting professor of civil engineering at Liverpool John Moores University.

David Jenkins

David Jenkins has led the IPWEA since December 2019, having spent more than a decade in senior roles at professional accounting body CPA Australia.

Jenkins has become recognised as a thought leader in infrastructure asset management, speaking at the Sydney Morning Herald Infrastructure Summit and other international events of interest to civil engineers. He has written for the New Zealand Herald, the country’s most widely read newspaper, and contributes regularly to the online publication Government News.

As host of the IPWEA’s Infrastructure Matters podcast, Jenkins has interviewed several international experts in the field.

He is also a board member at the International Federation of Municipal Engineering and chair of its technical committee. 

Prof Chai-kwong (CK) Mak

CK Mak is a civil engineer by profession and a career civil servant of 37 years. He served as head of Hong Kong’s Railway Development Office, project manager of the NT East Development Office, director of highways and permanent secretary in charge of the public works programme and policies. 

After retirement, he was appointed to oversee government-funded reconstruction works in Sichuan following its devastating 2008 earthquake. The reconstruction programme comprised 153 projects – including schools, hospitals and highways – and was completed in 2015.  

He has taught in Hong Kong universities since the 1980s and was made an honorary fellow by the University of Hong Kong and HK Polytech University in 2011. 

Dr Ohis Ilalokhoin

In his role at Cardinal Engineering, Dr Ohis Ilalokhoin is responsible for the engineering aspects of major railway infrastructure projects, both in the UK and overseas. He is currently leading the delivery of asset management programmes for major railway stations and complex buildings in Network Rail’s Southern region.

Ilalokhoin is also involved in research into the risks facing critical transport systems. As part of this work, he has developed novel system-of-systems methods and models for assessing the resilience of national railway networks.
 
A member of the ICE’s trustee board, Ilalokhoin is chair of the institution’s learning society portfolio, with responsibility for its strategic knowledge programmes. He also chairs the institution’s safety risk advisory group.

Nicola Kane

Nicola Kane is responsible for global consultancy Steer’s client relationships in the north of England, advising mayoral combined authorities and local authorities on a wide range of strategic projects. She has expertise in strategic planning, including the development of transport strategies and plans, major scheme business cases and the integration of land use and transport planning. She has recently been appointed as chair of the Transport Planning Society.

Kane joined Steer in 2022 from Transport for Greater Manchester, where she was head of strategic planning, insight and innovation. She led the development of its fourth local transport plan – the Greater Manchester Transport Strategy for 2040 – and a supporting five-year Transport Delivery Plan.

Kane was a member of the Department for Transport’s Capital Review Panel, advising the Secretary of State for Transport on capital investment priorities. She is a member of the advisory board of the Institute of Transport Studies (University of Leeds) and the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation’s Future Transport Visions Steering Group. She is also a chartered town planner (MRTPI) and transport planning professional (CTPP) and was awarded TPS transport planner of the year in 2017.

Prof David Richards

Serving as head of the University of Southampton’s School of Engineering in 2018-23, Professor David Richards has technical interests including the geotechnical aspects of ageing infrastructure, the engineering behaviour of landfill waste and the mechanical characterisation of chalk.

He has conducted detailed studies into the rate loading effects of electricity transmission tower footing systems. More recently, he has addressed the costly foundation design problems affecting the delivery of overhead lines on Network Rail’s Great Western electrification project.

Richards was principal investigator for the government-backed £26m National Infrastructure Laboratory for the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities. He worked on a networked suite of national test facilities studying infrastructure performance, resilience and renewal.

He is a co-recipient of the ICE’s Telford Premium, Bill Curtin Medal and Geotechnical Research Medal.

Dr Hazel McDonald

Dr Hazel McDonald has been immersed in the management of highway structures for more than three decades, mostly with Transport Scotland.  

After completing her PhD thesis on temperature effects in concrete box-girder bridges at the University of Strathclyde, she worked for Cumbria County Council, Capita Symonds and Mott MacDonald, specialising in bridge design, inspection and maintenance.

She then moved to Transport Scotland, where she has been for 20 years. In her current role, she leads a 17-strong team that manages the upkeep and upgrading of trunk road structures.  

A Fellow of the ICE, McDonald also chairs the UK Bridges Board.

Zoe Metcalfe

A seasoned expert in resilient urban systems and project delivery, Zoe Metcalfe has worked closely for several years with regional and local authorities on major infrastructure and nature-based programmes. 

She is a driving force behind Connected Thriving Places – a regenerative approach, applying nature-positive climate-resilient solutions, to giving all members of a community a better quality of life. Underpinned by credible data and digitally enabled, it’s designed to deliver lasting benefits to both people and nature. 

Prof Jennifer Schooling

Professor Jennifer Schooling’s research at Anglia Ruskin explores the sociotechnical aspects of digitalisation at the city scale, focusing on governance and ethical innovation. 

As co-director of the National Hub for Decarbonised, Adaptable and Resilient Transport Infrastructures, she also studies the use of data in decarbonising construction processes.

An ICE Fellow, Schooling was previously director of the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction. She was lead author of the Carbon Reduction Code for the Built Environment. 

She is a member of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s secure connected places advisory board and the Infrastructure Client Group’s digital transformation task group.

Santosh Singh

Santosh Singh is a Chartered Engineer and senior infrastructure leader with over  25 years’ experience in transport and bridge infrastructure, both in the UK and internationally. He has held executive roles across client and consultancy organisations, specialising in infrastructure strategy, asset management, project sponsorship and technical governance.

Singh is head of specialism and structures group manager at National Highways, providing strategic technical assurance for nationally significant programmes, and serves as a non-executive board member of the City Bridge Foundation. He is also a former chair of the Concrete Bridge Development Group (UK), which promotes innovation in low-carbon and net-zero bridge technologies.

Steve Verity

A recognised thought leader in the sustainable management of built infrastructure, Steve Verity is the principal advisor for the IPWEA Asset Management Programme and represents the institute on the Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management (GFMAM). He is also the principal author of several infrastructure studies, including the National State of the Assets Report for the Australian Local Government Association. 

Verity brings a deep understanding of the need for robust planning and risk management frameworks to ensure infrastructure projects and programmes are adequately funded and deliver services at agreed levels. He is regularly engaged by governments to advise on infrastructure planning and reporting reform initiatives.

Julie Wood

Julie is vice president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.  

She is a director of Mott MacDonald, joining in 2024, where she leads complex programmes and projects. She is currently the technical services and delivery director for the Interim Delivery Partner on the National Hospital Programme.  

Prior to this she was a director at Arup and major projects specialist leading large multi-disciplinary teams across organisations for over 20 years - with 10 years in an executive position with profit and loss responsibility for a c£40m business in Arup. Major projects include TransPennine Upgrade, HS2 Euston Station and The Francis Crick Institute.

She is Chartered Fellow of the ICE, an Honorary Fellow of the Association of Project Management. In 2020 she was made a Freeman of the City of London and in 2021 she was recognised as one of the top 50 Women in Industry (WES). Additionally with over 18 years of non-executive board experience across a number of sectors.