-
Courses
Courses
Choosing a course is one of the most important decisions you'll ever make! View our courses and see what our students and lecturers have to say about the courses you are interested in at the links below.
-
University Life
University Life
Each year more than 4,000 choose University of Galway as their University of choice. Find out what life at University of Galway is all about here.
-
About University of Galway
About University of Galway
Since 1845, University of Galway has been sharing the highest quality teaching and research with Ireland and the world. Find out what makes our University so special – from our distinguished history to the latest news and campus developments.
-
Colleges & Schools
Colleges & Schools
University of Galway has earned international recognition as a research-led university with a commitment to top quality teaching across a range of key areas of expertise.
-
Research & Innovation
Research & Innovation
University of Galway’s vibrant research community take on some of the most pressing challenges of our times.
-
Business & Industry
Guiding Breakthrough Research at University of Galway
We explore and facilitate commercial opportunities for the research community at University of Galway, as well as facilitating industry partnership.
-
Alumni & Friends
Alumni & Friends
There are 128,000 University of Galway alumni worldwide. Stay connected to your alumni community! Join our social networks and update your details online.
-
Community Engagement
Community Engagement
At University of Galway, we believe that the best learning takes place when you apply what you learn in a real world context. That's why many of our courses include work placements or community projects.
Accessibility & LanguageOur Team
Dr. Myra Lydon
Dr Myra Lydon leads the CRANN project and is a Civil Engineer who holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from Queen’s University Belfast (UK). Her research focuses on infrastructure resilience and maintenance decision-making for climate adaptation, particularly in relation to bridges. She was awarded a five-year Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship titled SMART Infrastructure, which aimed to enhance the resilience of road networks. This work was supported by the Northern Ireland Department for Infrastructure, providing a platform for the development and demonstration of a bridge maintenance decision-support tool.
Her research also explores the integration of Structural Health Monitoring data into infrastructure management, enabling a more accurate understanding of asset condition and providing early warning of damage or climate-related risks. She is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast.
Dr Lydon is a member of the Republic of Ireland Committee for the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) and serves as a regional member of the CIHT UK Council. She also consults for the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) and Translink on infrastructure asset management and digital strategies. Her research has been recognised as world-leading by the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF).
Contact: myra.lydon@universityofgalway.ie
Dr. Maria Prengolato
Dr Maria Pregnolato is one of the CRANN Project's co - leaders. She is a Civil Engineer and holds a MSc in Building Engineering and Architecture from the University of Pavia (Italy) and the Tongji University of Shanghai (China), a PhD in Civil Engineering from Newcastle University (UK) and MSc in Strategy, Leadership and Change from the University of Bristol (UK). Her work focuses on infrastructure resilience and risk management from natural hazards, in particular the impact of flooding to road networks, bridges and buildings. She held an EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK) Fellowship to investigate the impact of extreme flooding to bridges, including hydrodynamic modelling and scour risk management. In recent years, she has been focusing on structural health monitoring and Digital Twins, exploring the role of sensing and digitalisation within infrastructural assets exposed to flooding and natural hazards. She is also an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Bristol (UK). She received the EGU (European Geoscience Union) Outstanding Early Career Award in 2021 for her scientific contribution in the field of natural hazards.
Contact: m.pregnolato@tudelft.nl
Dr. Darragh Lydon
Dr. Darragh Lydon is one the CRANN project's co - leaders. He is Lecturer in Games Development at Queen’s University Belfast, based in the multidisciplinary Medialab within the School of Arts, English & Languages. His research explores applied games technologies with particular emphasis on Digital Twins, immersive and interactive environments, and their applications across the natural and built environment and the humanities. Dr. Lydon has an extensive track record in computer vision and deep learning research, including developing systems for structural monitoring and vehicle classification, and contributes to work on digital tools for infrastructure inspection and metaverse standards development. He also engages in interdisciplinary projects that intersect technology, education, and creative practice, and has been recognised with awards for his research and leadership.
Contact: d.lydon@qub.ac.uk
Dr. Kristopher Campbell
Kristopher Campbell is a Civil Engineer with the Department for Infrastructure, specialising in bridge asset management, structural assessment and innovative approaches to reducing risk across Northern Ireland’s transport network. He also serves as the Departments Heritage Officer, promoting the protection, understanding and sympathetic management of historic infrastructure, with a particular passion for traditional masonry bridges and heritage structures.
Kristopher holds a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast, where his research focused on managing scour risk, improving inspection practice, and developing new technologies—including a novel fibre‑optic scour sensor—to support evidence‑based bridge management. He is committed to integrating modern engineering with the conservation of historic assets, ensuring heritage structures remain safe, functional and valued.
Alongside his technical work, Kristopher actively supports early‑career development within DfI through mentoring, training delivery and collaborative learning initiatives. He is dedicated to strengthening the resilience of the roads network while celebrating and preserving the engineering heritage that shapes it.
Contact: kristopher.campbell@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk
Dr. Gianna Gavriel
Dr Gianna Gavriel is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Galway, working on the CRANN (Climate Resilient Adapted National Network) project responsible for the management of the existing data on bridge scour from Ireland, the automation of CS469 (the national manual on management of bridge scour) and the management of the project. Her research focuses on bridge scour, structural health monitoring (SHM), the development of frameworks to assist with bridge resilience and safety and statistical analysis. She holds a PhD and a MEng degree from the University of Bristol, where she performed for the first time in the context of bridge scour Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA) on multiple bridge scour equations and developed a framework for choosing the best SHM devices to deploy on bridges to detect bridge scour. Her expertise include probabilistic modelling, one-at-a-time sensitivity analysis, GSA on Python with several peer-reviewed publications. Gianna also holds an award for best presentation at the ICEC 2025 conference, held in Southampton.
Contact: gianna.gavriel@universityofgalway.ie
Dr. Raj Arora
Dr Raj Arora is a Postdoctoral Researcher at TU Delft, working on the CRANN (Climate Resilient Adapted National Network) project to develop risk-based frameworks for bridge infrastructure subjected to flooding. His research focuses on the risk and reliability assessment of bridges under multi-hazard scenarios, particularly extreme floods. He holds a Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from IIT Bombay, where he developed a risk-based framework using fragility and resilience models for flood-prone riverine bridges. His expertise includes probabilistic modelling, vulnerability analysis, and finite element simulation in OpenSees, with several peer-reviewed publications in the field.
Contact: r.k.a.rajarora@tudelft.nl
Gary Campbell
Gary Campbell is a PhD researcher at Queen’s University Belfast working on the CRANN (Climate Resilient Adapted National Network) project. His research focuses on the use of serious games and interactive XR-based simulations to support bridge inspection, risk awareness, and knowledge elicitation in the context of climate-driven hazards, particularly bridge scour and flood risk. He is interested in how interactive digital tools can be used to better understand expert decision-making and improve training and assessment in infrastructure management.
Contact: gcampbell38@qub.ac.uk
