Alalea Kia | UKRI Future Leaders Fellow
RSIG at Imperial College London

I am a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and a Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Associate Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. I lead the Resilient Sustainable Infrastructure Group, which addresses urgent climate and societal challenges by developing and investigating the performance of novel materials technologies using laboratory experiments, numerical modelling and large-scale field testing. My research interests are focussed on cleantech, mitigation of the damaging effects of climate change and the transformation of the construction sector towards net-zero. My work encompasses urban flood mitigation and adaptation, sustainable drainage systems, permeable concrete pavements and their application in extreme weather and loading scenarios, additive manufacturing, multi-scale experimental and numerical modelling methods, durability of cement-based materials and the development of new low-carbon cementitious materials. I was chosen as one of the ‘Top 50 Women in Engineering’ in 2022 by the Women’s Engineering Society, received the ‘Hawley Award for Engineering Innovation’ by the Worshipful Company of Engineers and Engineering Council, and the Imperial College London President’s Medal for Excellence in Research in 2023. In 2024, I was selected as a RAEng Young Engineer of the Year and received the Sir George MacFarlane Medal.