Researchers
Dr Thomas Longden - Senior Research Fellow
Dr Thomas Longden is a Senior Researcher who works on applied econometrics, environmental economics, energy economics and health economics. He is the Secretary of the NSW Branch of the Economic Society of Australia and a member of the ACT Climate Change Council.
Dr Ehsan Noroozinejad - Senior Research Fellow
Dr. Ehsan Noroozinejad Farsangi is the Resilient Construction and Infrastructure Senior Research Fellow. His areas of expertise include resilience-based design of structures, automation in construction, innovative structural systems, and data-centric engineering. He has been the founding director of the Resilient Structures Research Cluster (RSRC). Ehsan also serves as an Editor for esteemed journals in the field.
Professor Pejman Sharafi — Principal Research Academic
Co-Lead on Net-Zero Construction Platforms with the School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment
Associate Professor Pejman Sharafi is a principal research academic, leading Modular Prefab Design Laboratory (MPD-Lab). His areas of expertise are structural systems, offsite manufacturing, industrialised construction platforms, prefabricated systems, modular design, and optimisation. He has led several national and international research projects in collaboration with a number of leading universities and major industries, and has been the chief investigator of over $5.8M research projects in this area.
Dr Vanita Yadav - Senior Research Fellow
Dr Vanita Yadav is a sustainable management and business model innovation expert with a passion for entrepreneurial thinking and problem-solving. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Fulbright Fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA and a Research Affiliate with the South Asia Institute, Harvard University. Vanita has served in academic and research leadership roles in her interdisciplinary experience spanning Australia, USA, and India. She has published her research extensively and serves on the editorial boards of journals.
Sinéad Nicholson - Research Fellow
Sinead (she/her) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Urban Transformations Research Centre. Her areas of expertise include climate-responsive design, multi-hazard landscape design, computational environmental modelling, and practice-based research. She works on Managing Resilient Urban Greenspaces in Australian Cities, a Hort Innovation Frontiers project developing practitioner guides for designing and managing green spaces resilient to heat, fire, and flood. Sinéad obtained her industry-based PhD at the University of Kent through the SOLOCLIM Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme, developing data-driven, generative methods for climate-responsive design.
Vahid Mousavi - Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr. Vahid Mousavi is a Researcher with expertise in photogrammetry, remote sensing, and digital transformation for resilient infrastructure monitoring and management. His research focuses on the application of UAV photogrammetry, terrestrial laser scanning, 3D reconstruction, and multi-source geospatial data integration for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), Digital Twins (DTs), and asset management of civil infrastructure systems. His work integrates artificial intelligence and data-driven approaches to support infrastructure resilience, condition assessment, disaster response, Decision Support Systems (DSS), and sustainable asset management. He has contributed to several research and industry-focused projects involving advanced geospatial and digital technologies for resilient and sustainable urban infrastructure.
Mohammad Siahkouhi - Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Mohammad Siahkouhi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Western Sydney University specialising in digital twins, artificial intelligence, railway monitoring, and infrastructure asset management. His research focuses on AI-driven predictive maintenance, multi-modal sensing, edge computing, and structural health monitoring for intelligent railway systems. He leads research projects integrating digital engineering technologies with real-world railway applications to improve infrastructure safety, resilience, and operational efficiency. Dr Siahkouhi actively collaborates with industry partners, transport authorities, and international researchers on smart infrastructure and predictive asset management solutions. He also supervises higher-degree research students and contributes to interdisciplinary and industry-engaged engineering research initiatives.