Dr Mitrani works part-time, Monday to Wednesday.

Background

Dr Helen Mitrani joined the School of Engineering in 2012, as part of the Geotechnical and Structural Engineering (GEST) Group. Dr Mitrani carried out her PhD research in seismic geotechnics – specifically the centrifuge testing of liquefaction remediation methods. Following this, she worked as a structural engineer in the London and Newcastle offices of Arup, a global firm of consulting engineers. During this time, she gained chartered civil engineer status and was involved in the design and construction of diverse and challenging structures, including a new facility for testing 100m long wind turbine blades. Her current research interests are informed by her experience in both geotechnical and structural design disciplines.

Qualifications

MEng Civil and Structural Engineering (University of Sheffield)

PhD Seismic Geotechnics (University of Cambridge)

Memberships

EPSRC Early Career Forum in Manufacturing Research (ecfmanufacturing.com)

CEng MICE Chartered Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers

Associate Fellow of The Higher Education Academy

Google scholar: Click here.

Research Interests

• Responsive materials
• Microbially-induced calcium carbonate precipitation
• Novel ground improvement techniques
• Effects of long-term cyclic loading on soils and structures
• Liquefaction and liquefaction remediation

Funded Projects

www.synbio.construction

Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment

Current Projects

Thinking Soils. Co-I for EPSRC funded project (EP/R003629/1). This project builds on the work in Computational Colloids to develop a living material which can respond to physical forces in its environment through the synthesis of strengthening materials. This concept is partly biomimetic inspired by, for example, the way in which our bones strengthen, becoming more dense under repeated load. However, we are also proposing to build this system using living bacteria cells which have no such functional requirement in nature.

Previous Projects

Computational Colloids. Co-I for EPSRC funded project (EP/N005791/1). This project investigates how Civil Engineering may be integrated with the emerging field of Synthetic Biology. Combining these fields has potentially transformative implications for both and may generate a new field of Engineering Design.

Soil-structure interaction under long term cyclic loading. Funded by the SAgE Faculty of Newcastle University, under the EPSRC Doctoral Training Award scheme. This project investigates how long-term cyclic loading effects the behaviour of shallow onshore wind turbine foundations.

PhD Supervision

Current Projects

Rose Hawkswood Soil-structure interaction under long-term cyclic loading

Thora Arnardottir Bacterial Sculpting

Completed Projects

Javier Rodriguez Corral (Feb 2020) Micro and Macro-Scale Characterisation of and Agarose-Based Physical and Computational Model for the Testing and Development of Engineered Responsive Living Systems

Esteem Indicators

Reviewer for 'Géotechnique', Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering', 'Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering', 'Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering' and 'International Journal of Physical Modelling in Geotechnics'.

Scientific Committee member for the International Conference on Geotechnical Research and Engineering, 2020 and 2021.

Authored an Arup internal guidance note on ‘Fatigue design of Concrete to EC2’.

Member of the EPSRC Peer Review Associate College.

Links

Google Scholar profile

ResearchGate profile

Previous Undergraduate Teaching

Module Leader for:

• CEG3301 Design of Building Systems

 Contribution to: 

• CEG3099 Individual Project - project supervision
• CEG8099 Investigative Research Project - project supervision

Previous Postgraduate Teaching 

Contribution to:  

• CEG8296 MSc Project and Dissertation in Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology - project supervision

• Arnardottir T, Dade-Robertson M, Mitrani H, Zhang M, Christgen B. Turbulent Casting: Bacterial Expression in Mineralized Structures. In: ACADIA 2020 Distributed Proximities: Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture. 2021, Online: ACADIA.
• Rodriguez Corral J, Mitrani H, Dade-Robertson M, Zhang M, Maiello P. Agarose gel as a soil analogue for the development of advanced bio-mediated soil improvement methods. Canadian Geotechnical Journal 2020, 57(12), 2010-2019.
• Rodriguez Corral J, Mitrani H, Zhang M, Dade-Robertson M. Study of bacteria growth for the development of bio-mediated soil improvement methods. In: 4th World Congress on Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering (CSEE'19). 2019, Rome, Italy: Avestia Publishing.
• Corral JR, Mitrani H, Dade-Robertson M, Zhang M. Agarose gel as a soil analogue for novel ground improvement applications. In: 3rd World Congress on Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering (CSEE '18). 2018, Budapest, Hungary: Avestia Publishing.
• Dade-Robertson M, Mitrani H, Rodriguez-Corral J, Zhang M, Hernan L, Guyet A, Wipat A. Design and modelling of an engineered bacteria-based, pressure-sensitive soil. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics 2018, 13(4), 046004.
• Guyet A, Dade-Robertson M, Wipat A, Casement J, Smith W, Mitrani H, Zhang M. Mild hydrostatic pressure triggers oxidative responses in Escherichia coli. PLoS ONE 2018, 13(7), e0200660.
• Dade-Robertson M, Rodriguez-Corral J, Guyet A, Mitrani H, Wipat A, Zhang M. Synthetic Biological Construction: Beyond 'bio-inspired' in the design of new materials and fabrication systems. In: 3rd International Conference Biodigital: Architecture & Genetics. 2017, Barcelona: UIC.
• Dade-Robertson M, Corral J, Mitrani H, Zhang M, Wipat A, Ramirez-Figueroa C, Hernan L. Thinking Soils: A Synthetic Biology approach to material based design computation. In: ACADIA 2016 - Posthuman Frontiers: Data, Designers and Cognitive Machines. 2016, Ann Arbor, Michigan: Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture.
• Mitrani H, Madabhushi SPG. Geomembrane containment walls for liquefaction remediation. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Ground Improvement 2012, 166(1), 9-20.
• Mitrani H, Madabhushi SPG. Rigid containment walls for liquefaction remediation. Journal of Earthquake and Tsunami 2012, 6(4), 1250017.
• Mitrani H, Madabhushi SPG. Cementation liquefaction remediation for existing buildings. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Ground Improvement 2010, 163(2), 81-94.
• Mitrani H, Madabhushi SPG. Centrifuge modelling of inclined micro-piles for liquefaction remediation of existing buildings. Geomechanics and Geoengineering 2008, 3(4), 245-256.