Robert Mair, Baron Mair

The Right Honourable The Lord Mair CBE
Robert Mair delivering a lecture in Cambridge, February 2013
Born	20 April 1950[1]
Fields	Geotechnical engineering Tunnel design & construction
Institutions	University of Cambridge Institution of Civil Engineers Crossrail Geotechnical Consulting Group (GCG) Laing O'Rourke Scott Wilson Group The Leys School
Alma mater	Clare College, Cambridge
Thesis	Centrifugal modelling of tunnel construction in soft clay (1979)
Doctoral advisor	Andrew N. Schofield
Known for	Jubilee Line Extension[2]
Notable awards	Fellow of the Royal Society Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Website www.eng.cam.ac.uk/~rjm50

Robert James Mair, Baron Mair, CBE, FRS, FICE, FREng (born 20 April 1950) is a geotechnical engineer and Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He is the Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering. He was Master of Jesus College, Cambridge from 2001 to 2011 and a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge from 1998 to 2001.^[3][4][5] In 2014 he was elected a vice president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and is proposed to be the Institution's President for 2017-18, its two hundredth anniversary year.^[6] On 13 October 2015 his appointment to be a peer in the House of Lords was announced. He sits as a Crossbencher.^[7]

Education

Mair was educated at St Faith's^[8] and The Leys School in Cambridge^[1] and went on to study Engineering at Clare College, Cambridge gaining a MA degree in 1975^[1] and a PhD degree in 1979.^[9]

Honours and awards

Mair was elected as a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE) in 1990, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 1992,^[10] and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2007.^[11] Mair delivered the 46th Rankine Lecture of the British Geotechnical Association and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.^[12] Mair has been awarded numerous research grants by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).^[13]

On 29 October 2015, he was created a life peer with the title Baron Mair, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridgeshire.^[14]

Personal

Robert is the son of the late William Austyn Mair, Francis Mond Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at Cambridge 1952–1983.

References

1. "'MAIR, Prof. Robert James', Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012 ; online edn, Nov 2012".
2. "BBC Radio 4 – The Life Scientific, Prof Robert Mair".
3. "Professor Robert Mair appointed to the House of Lords". Retrieved 26 November 2015.
4. List of publications from Microsoft Academic Search
5. Burland, John B.; Mair, Robert James (2013). "Sir Alan Marshall Muir Wood FREng FICE. 8 August 1921 – 1 February 2009". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2013.0011.
6. Pitcher, Greg (14 October 2015). "ICE chief becomes a peer". New Civil Engineer online. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
7. "Four new con-party-political peers". House of Lords Appointments Commission. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
8. "Professor Lord Mair - St Faith's School Website". St Faith's School Website. Retrieved 2016-04-28.
9. Mair, Robert (1979). Centrifugal modelling of tunnel construction in soft clay (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
10. "List of Fellows". Royal Academy of Engineering.
11. Biography Robert Mair - website of the Royal Society
12. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 59282. p. 8. 31 December 2009.
13. "Grants awarded to Robert Mair by the EPSRC".
14. The London Gazette: no. 61399. p. 21622. 4 November 2015. Retrieved 6 November 2015.