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Vivian Tam in her lab at Western’s Penrith Campus.
The Sea Cliff Bridge, a concrete elevated overpass in New South Wales.
Vivian Tam is the epitome of a pioneering researcher. After joining Western Sydney University in 2009 as a senior lecturer in quantity surveying, she secured the first Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Projects grant in construction management in 2015, studying the lifecycle cost and emissions of green buildings. This was followed soon after with a second ARC Discovery Projects grant on developing a multiple-constraint automation model for optimal green building implementation with construction industry partners, putting sustainable construction on the national research agenda in 2019.
"Construction management is not a field traditionally associated with research funding," Tam says. "When I joined the School of Engineering in 2009, we had no PhD students in construction, and no research projects. These two ARC projects kicked off a new culture of research here, and we now have more than 25 PhD candidates covering a range of topics, as well as the largest number of undergraduate students in construction management in Australia."
Tam earned her own PhD in construction engineering and management at City University of Hong Kong, studying the environmental impact of the local construction industry. This led to her interest in green buildings and sustainable construction, which has focused on turning construction waste into a valuable building resource.
Need to know
- Vivian Tam is passionate about recycling waste in construction.
- She was awarded the first ARC Discovery Projects Grant in construction management.
- She is the lead inventor of CO2 Concrete.
"My encouragement for any researcher is to find your interest and follow it."
"I have been studying ways to recycle concrete since 2001, which led to the recent development of our CO2 Concrete process, for which I have just received the first ever ARC Future Fellowship in construction management," says Tam.
A spin-off venture, CO2 Concrete which produces durable and high-strength recycled concrete by injecting carbon dioxide into recycled aggregates to improve its bonding, has now been established with Tam as Lead Inventor to further develop the process with local industry partners.
"Western Sydney is a really dynamic region with lots of infrastructure development over the past decade, including the new airport," says Tam. "This makes it a great place for sustainable construction research, with many willing partners for collaboration."
At the same time, Tam has taken on the roles of Associate Dean (Research and HDR) of the School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment and Director of the Centre for Infrastructure Engineering. She has just been made Western Sydney University’s first ever Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering for her contribution to a low-carbon circular economy, making her mark as a leader in the field she has pioneered.
"I have received lots of support in my career at Western Sydney by following my passion," Tam says. "My encouragement for any researcher is to find your interest and follow it."
Meet the Academic | Distinguished Professor Vivian Tam
Distinguished Professor Vivian W. Y. Tam is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and a world-leading researcher in the field of construction engineering and management. Her findings have found applications and impact for tackling climate change issues for green buildings and recycled concrete. She is currently the Director of the Centre for Infrastructure Engineering, Associate Dean (Research and HDR), Associate Dean (International) and Discipline Leader (Construction Management) at the School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment.
She was nominated to the College of Experts, Australian Research Council in 2018-2021. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Construction Management and Senior Editor of Construction and Building Materials. She has published over 330 referred journal articles. She has been awarded fifty-three research grants (totalling over $5 million). Her work has been recognised by peers nationally and internationally, which has been exemplified by seven Australian Research Council projects and over 28,000 citations with a h-index of 88. Vivian has been recognised as one of the top 2% of scientists in the world since 2017. She was nominated as Runner Up in the 2019 Scopus Researcher of the Year Award, Excellence in Research Impacting a Sustainable Future category, and her team won the Gold Award in the 2021 Urban Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, Guangzhou International Sister-City Universities (GISU).
Credit
Future-Makers is published for Western Sydney University by Nature Research Custom Media, part of Springer Nature.
© Cybele Malinowski
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