Faculty: Science and Engineering
School: Engineering and the Built Environment
Category: #OurPeople
26 November 2019
After a few years in applied research and consultancy, I wanted to go back to academia - which I'd left after completing my PhD. ARU offered me the opportunity to start doing research and, after that, to take on teaching activities. I appreciate the diversity I found here.
I'm now a senior lecturer in the School of Engineering and the Built Environment. I am module leader and tutor of few modules and I supervise dissertations at all academic grades.
What the students see – lectures and marking – is only part of my job as a tutor. It also includes preparation and selection of teaching material, planning sessions to customise the learning experience according to the needs of each class, and a few administrative activities.
I am able to balance teaching and research and so, to bring to the most advanced knowledge to my students, I do research on risk and resilience to natural disasters, and on vibrations control and structural degradation. Although I am keen on modelling the environment using numbers, I am progressively adding another passion to engineering: the observation of the interaction of people, built environment and natural phenomena.
As a child I had always been curious about natural phenomena, constructions, numbers, computers and mechanisms.
I bring my enthusiasm for engineering to students. When I teach, I link all mathematical and physical abstract models to phenomena and objects in the world surrounding us, and to the engineering practice I experienced before joining ARU.
ARU cares about students’ wellbeing and diversity and prepares them to live in the globalised world. As a tutor I strive to guide the students I'm supervising to find their passion and the abilities that will make their career successful
Mara teaches engineering at ARU: find out more about our undergraduate engineering degrees.