Barbara Lane

Dr Lane is the Director of Arup University, home to Arup’s resources specially assigned to enable its membership to deliver excellence and to influence the pursuit of a sustainable future. Arup University leads the firm’s foresight, research and innovation programmes, the outcomes of which are used to influence the transformation of standards in the built environment, helping find a better way. Arup University brings together the firm’s learning opportunities for its global membership, and enables collaboration, knowledge and information sharing through global skills networks – all in pursuit of excellence for our clients and collaborators.  

Dr Lane is a Fellow of Arup for her fire safety expertise. She is an expert in total fire safety, which focuses on decision making, tools, techniques and solutions that enable the protection of life and the built environment. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin and Edinburgh University, she has worked on projects around the world at Arup since 1997. She is currently an expert witness for the Grenfell Inquiry, and due to complete her work in September 2024. 

She holds the Silver Medal from the Royal Academy of Engineering, awarded in 2008 for outstanding personal contribution with a commercial benefit to British engineering.  

She was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2016 for services to fire safety, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2018 for services to fire safety research and innovation.