Biography

Mark G. Stewart is Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability at The University of Newcastle in Australia. He is also currently an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow. He is the author, with R.E. Melchers, of Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Engineering Systems (Chapman & Hall, 1997), as well as more than 300 technical papers and reports. He has more than 25 years of experience in probabilistic risk and vulnerability assessment of infrastructure and security systems that are subject to man-made and natural hazards. Mark has received over $3 million in Australian Research Council (ARC) support in the past 10 years.

Mark has significant expertise in time and spatial dependent reliability analysis of new and existing deteriorating structures such as bridges and buildings. This has utility for assessing the safety and service-life prediction of new and existing structures. In collaboration with the CSIRO, Mark is also assessing the impact of climate change on damage and safety risks to infrastructure, and assessing the cost-effectiveness of engineering adaptation strategies. He is also a leading investigator with the reliability-based calibration of the Australian Masonry and Concrete Codes.

Since 2004, Mark has received extensive ARC support to develop probabilistic risk-modelling techniques for infrastructure subject to military and terrorist explosive blasts and cost-benefit assessments of counter-terrorism protective measures for critical infrastructure. In 2011, he received a five-year Australian Professorial Fellowship from the ARC to continue and to extend that work.

Areas of expertise:

• Risk-based optimisation of safety assessment and maintenance of deteriorating infrastructure
• Life-cycle cost optimisation for maintenance of deteriorating infrastructure
• Terrorism and security risks and blast damage to built infrastructure
• Cost-effectiveness of security and infrastructure protective measures
• Risk Assessment and Cost-effectiveness of climate change adaptation measures
• Time-dependent structural and serviceability reliability

Career highlights:

• Australian Professorial Fellowship (ARC) - Probabilistic Terrorism Risk Assessment and Risk Acceptability for Infrastructure Protection.
• 11 Australian Research Council grants worth $3 million.
• 3 books including Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Engineering Systems.
• 110 journal publications + 173 conference papers and research reports.
• Seven keynote lectures at international conferences in Europe and China.
• Consultant to CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, Geoscience Australia, RTA of NSW, and Coffey Geosciences.

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Newcastle, 1988
• Bachelor of Engineering, Monash University

Research

Research keywords

• risk assessment
• structural deterioration modelling
• structural reliability

Research expertise

• Spatial and time-dependent structural reliability
• Risk assessment and reliability of new and existing structures
• Damage and safety risks for infrastructure subject to explosive blast loading
• Security and counter-terrorism risk assessment
• Cost-benefit analyses
• Life-cycle cost assessments
• Reliability of structural masonry
• Stochastic deterioration modelling of concrete structures
• Probabilistic risk assessment of engineering systems

Fields of Research

Centres and Groups

Centre

• Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability

Memberships

Body relevant to professional practice.

• Australian Representative - International Standards Organisation TC98 (General Principle on Risk Assessment for Structures)

Committee/Associations (relevant to research).

• Chair - International Forum on Engineering Decision-Making

Editorial Board.

• Member - Structural Safety
• Member - Australian Journal of Structural Engineering
• Member - International Journal of Protective Structures
• Associate Editor - International Journal of Structure and Infrastructure Engineering

Awards

Research Award.

Invitations