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Lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Centre for Infrastructure Engineering and Safety (CIES)

Dr Ulrike Dackermann is a lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a member of the Centre for Infrastructure, Engineering and Safety at UNSW.

Dr Dackermann’s expertise lies in non-destructive testing, timber engineering, structural health monitoring, wave propagation analysis, damage detection, structural dynamics and artificial intelligence. She believes that integrating artificial intelligence (AI) in smart structural health monitoring systems can help generate more sophisticated and reliable inspection procedures, ensuring the sustainability of civil infrastructure. On a project involving the Sydney Harbour Bridge, she developed new damage assessment methods to safeguard its longevity, using AI to analyse vibration measurements gathered from the bridge’s sensor system.

Dr Dackermann’s knowledge in AI also has practical applications for the energy sector. In an ARC Linkage grant, partnering with AusGrid, she used her expertise in AI and timber engineering to develop a screening tool that enables AusGrid pole inspectors to distinguish healthy poles from unhealthy poles using wave-based detection and AI to locate invisible damage.

As a true engineer, when she sees and identifies a problem, she must help to solve it. This vision has extended to her work abroad with Engineers Without Borders where seemingly simple innovations have resulted in practical real life solutions for communities to conserve energy, improve health outcomes and diminish environmental degradation. This ‘giving back’ is Dr Dackermann’s down to earth, hands-on approach to creating balance in her life as a researching academic and a global engineer.

Professional Organisations / Affiliations

• Australian Network of Structural Health Monitoring (ANSHM), Executive Committee Member International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (ISHMII), Member
• International Union of Laboratories and Experts in Construction Materials, Systems and Structures (RILEM), Member
• Concrete Institute of Australia, Member
• Engineers Without Borders (EWB), Member
• Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Non-Destructive Testing Division, Germany, Visiting Fellow, 2013
• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Visiting Fellow, 2008
• Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology (Norsk Treteknisk Institutt), Oslo, Norway, Visiting Fellow, 2002/2003
• Norwegian Public Roads Administration (Statens Vegvesen), Oslo, Norway, Visiting Fellow, 2002/2003

Current Service Roles

• Teaching and Learning Committee, UNSW, Member
• Academic Advisor (Year 1), School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW