FireSERT People within FireSERT

Professor Faris Ali

Professor of Structural Engineering

Faris Ali is a Professor of Structural Engineering at the Ulster University, the Built Environment Research Institute. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the spin-out company Vifkon Ltd developing smart blast-fire protection systems.  Prof. Ali is the award winner of the best invention in Hi-Tech in Northern Ireland for the year 2012. Additionally, he is the Founder and the Editor-in-Chief of the first ever research journal specializing in structural behavior in fire, "Journal of Structural Fire Engineering". Professor Ali is the holder of three patents related with fire and blast technologies. He has attracted more than £1.9 million of industrial and research grants. He is a visiting professor at Warsaw University of Technology and NITK, India. Professor Ali is a member of the BS committee FSH/22, member of the scientific committee of the SIF and the Protect conferences. Faris is an advisor for the United Nations, the Swiss Science Foundation, the European Research Council, the Science Foundation of the Czech Republic. He has more than 100 research outputs and is also a member of scientific and steering committees of many international conferences and a reviewer for a significant number of research journals.

Dr Karen Boyce

Senior Lecturer

Dr Karen Boyce is a Senior Lecturer in School of the Built Environment and has been a member of FireSERT, working in the area of human behaviour in fire, for 27 years.  Her research interests are primarily on the provision of data and information in relation to the behaviour and movement of occupants during evacuation and her PhD research (1996) focused on the capabilities of people with disabilities to evacuate.

High profile projects have included an EPSRC funded investigation into the behaviours of evacuees of World Trade Centre on 9/11. She is the author of over 60 research publications and current Chair of the Programme Committee for the International Symposium Human Behaviour in Fire series.  She was Guest Editor of special editions of Fire and Materials in 2012 and 2015 and is currently a member of the Editorial Boards of open access journals Fire Science Reviews and Case Studies in Fire Safety and a member of the Advisory Board of Fire and Materials. She recently co-wrote a chapter entitled Engineering Data for the 4th Edition of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers Handbook and is Co-chair of the Planning Committee for the 12th International Association of Fire Safety Science Symposium.

Dr Nigel McConnell

Lecturer in Human Behaviour in Fire

Nigel McConnell is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society, a Lecturer and member of the Fire Safety Engineering Research Technology (FireSERT) research group at the University of Ulster, working in the area of human behaviour and fire.  

His PhD focused on the Neurobehavioural (e.g. cognition and post-fire trauma) effects of exposure to fire toxins such as carbon monoxide and the Psychological impact of being involved in an accidental dwelling fire.

Nigel has published work in relation to the pre-movement times and factors influencing behaviour of occupants in 9/11 World Trade centre attacks.  His work on the 9/11 World Trade centre attacks also included researching the behaviours and evacuation experiences of evacuees with self-designated mobility impairments.  

His research has focuses on people with mobility impairments in relation to knowledge, attitudes and behaviours in the evacuation of multi-storey buildings.  

Nigel has been guest a speaker at international conferences, reviewer for research funding and guest reviewer for reputable international journals in the area of human behaviour in fire.

He has had long term collaboration with the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service and is a member of a human factors in emergency research group organized by the Italian National Fire Corps.

Nigel is also an advisor to charities in relation to research strategies and statistical analyses.

Professor Ali Nadjai

Professor of Fire Structural Engineering

Professor Nadjai is currently the Director of Fire Safety Engineering Research Technology Centre. This involved developing strategic leadership in research, higher learning and operational management of the state of the art and unique laboratories in fire Science in UK and all the Ireland.

Professor Nadjai has built a distinguished career in the field of fire safety, becoming a respected researcher and author in this field. Professor Nadjai was educated at Annaba University (BEng (H, 1985), Heriot-Watt University (MSc, 1988) and the University of Sheffield (PhD, 1992). After three year working as a research Fellow in Nottingham Trent University, Professor Nadjai joined the University of Ulster in 1995 as a Lecturer, was promoted to Reader in 2000 and became full professor in fire structural engineering in 2005.

Research

Professor Nadjai conducts his research at the university's internationally acclaimed FireSERT facility. He has been awarded several sources of grant from EPSRC, FW6, FW7, USA, South Korean government and industrial research development bringing a total contribution over £ 10 Million pounds. He has published over 120 papers in books, journals and conferences. He is also author of several design guides for the fire design of structures, which are extensively used by practitioners throughout the world.

PhD supervision

Professor Nadjai has supervised twenty recent successful PhD projects in fire and currently supervises eight research students working on experimental and analytical structural/materials and protection fire engineering projects.

Dr Jianping Zhang

Reader

Dr Jianping Zhang is a Reader in Fire Dynamics and Material at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment. He holds a BEng (Honours) degree in Mechanical Engineering. After obtaining his PhD on "Numerical modelling of pool fires and flame spread" at Kingston University in 2005, he joined Ulster University as a research associate in the FP6 project PredFIRE-Nano, in which he was responsible for the development and validation of a complete methodology for predicting the burning behaviours of polymer nanocomposites based on intrinsic properties extracted from micro- and small-scale tests. He was appointed as Lecturer in 2008 and subsequently promoted to Reader in 2016.

He has worked on FP7 projects including ENFIRO, AircraftFire and ELISSA and the H2020 project EENSULATE as well as projects funded by industry and UK government. His research interests consist of fundamental experimental investigation of material flammability and fire dynamics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling of flames and fires, numerical analysis of heat transfer and pyrolysis of solids, and application of quantitative risk analysis in fire safety engineering. He has published widely in the fields of fire safety, material flammability and combustion.

Dr Naveed Alam

Lecturer in Civil Engineering

Dr Naveed Alam is a Lecturer in Civil Engineering and is conducting research at Fire Safety Engineering Research Technology Centre (FireSERT), Ulster University. Dr Alam specialises in structural fire engineering, structural earthquake engineering and in green construction techniques (concrete recycling, timber construction, agriculture waste in construction). Dr Alam is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Dr Alam has completed his PhD from Ulster University. During his PhD, Dr Alam has worked on the response of slim floors in fires. Following his PhD, Dr Alam has performed experimental work on large compartment travelling fires.

As a Lecturer in Civil Engineering since the year 2020, Dr Alam has been teaching structural engineering related courses at Ulster University. Dr Alam has also taught courses related to safety engineering, built environment, project management and mathematics.

In terms of research, Dr Alam has conducted experimental and computational investigations on structures in fire with focus on slim floor beams, travelling fires, facades in fire. His ongoing research includes, travelling fires, vertical garden fires, slim floors in fire, collapse mechanisms, fire performance of concrete with alternative cementitious materials, fire performance of self-healing concrete, collapse mechanisms of structures in fire, modular construction, structures under earthquake loads and more.

Prior to joining Ulster University, Dr Alam has worked with academics and industry in different capacities. He has worked as a researcher in earthquake engineering with academics and has served as a site engineer, structural engineer and as a project manager in Disaster Risk Mitigation related projects with industry. Dr Alam has also worked as a team leader on disaster response teams during his affiliation with industry. While working as a researcher previously, Dr Alam has developed damage probability matrices and fragility for the existing buildings in the area of research.

Over the years, Dr Alam has expanded his research network not only within the UK but has also collaborated with researchers from different parts of Europe, Africa and Asia. Going ahead, Dr Alam is keen on working with researchers from different parts of the world in the field of structural fire engineering and structural earthquake engineering.

Dr Svetlana Tretsiakova

Senior Lecturer in the Built Environment (Chemistry)

Dr Svetlana Tretsiakova-McNally is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry within Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment. She is a polymer/material chemist with more than 15 years of post-doctoral experience in organic, polymer and fire chemistries, and material science.

She had extensively studied fundamental physico-chemical phenomena and the mechanisms pertaining thermal/thermo-oxidative degradation/decomposition, flammability, flame retardation and fire chemistry of a wide range of polymers and composites. Svetlana’s research areas include:

• toxic chemicals in fire effluent
• synthesis of fire retardant polymers;
• novel bio-inspired fire retardants;
• ligno-cellulosic materials for environmental applications;
• wastewater treatment;
• removal of antibiotic residues and toxic elements from waters.

She publishes in the fields of polymer science, fire-safe polymeric materials, sustainable materials, colloid chemistry, and waste management.

Svetlana is a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and serves on the committee of the RSC Northern Ireland Section.