Rate My Professor Stephanie Glendinning

Professor Stephanie Glendinning is Professor of Civil Engineering and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering at Newcastle University, a role she assumed in June 2021. In this capacity, she leads and manages one of the largest faculties in the UK, encompassing over 8000 students and 1200 staff across four schools in the UK and one in Singapore. She holds a BSc in Engineering (Civil) from Leicester University (1989) and a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from Loughborough University (1995). Glendinning began her career at Newcastle University in 1998 as a Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering within the then Department of Civil Engineering. She advanced through key positions, including Stage 3 Tutor where she revamped the dissertation module, and led the redesign of the Civil Engineering curriculum during an industrial secondment. Previously, she served as Dean of Strategic Projects, delivering high-profile initiatives such as the Urban Sciences Building, which integrates academia and industry to tackle global sustainability challenges. She was also Director of Electrokinetic Ltd. from 2002 to 2021 and held a Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellowship with Arup from 2008 to 2009. Additionally, she has driven the Urban Sciences agenda and specialized in infrastructure-related research, focusing on adaptation to extreme weather and climate change.

Her research interests center on sustainable development in cities and infrastructure, climate change impacts particularly on slope stability, ground improvement via cementitious stabilisation and electrokinetics, and full-scale monitoring and modelling to demonstrate outputs and engage stakeholders. Glendinning is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and a member of the British Geotechnical Association and the International Geosynthetics Society. Notable publications include 'Performance of sustainable drainage capillary barrier systems for climate change adaptation in temperate climates' (Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 2025), 'Emulating long-term weather-driven transportation earthworks deterioration models to support asset management' (Transportation Geotechnics, 2024), 'Evidence for the weather-driven deterioration of ageing transportation earthworks in the UK' (Transportation Geotechnics, 2023), 'Development of a Multi-Phase Numerical Modeling Approach for Hydromechanical Behavior of Clay Embankments Subject to Weather-Driven Deterioration' (Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 2023), 'Weather-driven deterioration processes affecting the performance of embankment slopes' (Géotechnique, 2021), and 'Emulating computer experiments of transport infrastructure slope stability using Gaussian processes and Bayesian inference' (Data-Centric Engineering, 2021). Her contributions advance infrastructure resilience against climate challenges.