Academics
| Dr Martina Manes |
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Dr Martina Manes is a Lecturer in Civil Engineering at the University of Liverpool. Her research includes the investigation of international fire statistics, evaluation of fire risk assessment and optimization of fire resilience. She is a professionally qualified civil engineer in Italy and her research outcomes updated the BS PD 7974-7:2003 fire safety data with current fire statistics of England and the USA. She also participated in the EU FireStat project funded by the European Commission. Experience with interdisciplinary teams of experts was built on collaborations between academia and industry, participation in technical steering groups for MHCLG research, consultancy for the NFCC, DLUHC, and private companies, and studies with experts in engineering and social sciences. In 2023, she received the Faculty Learning, Teaching and Student Experience Award of the University of Liverpool for outstanding teaching. |
| Dr Xu Dai |
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Dr Xu Dai is a Lecturer in Structural Engineering at the University of Liverpool. His research is centred on structural fire engineering to mitigate worldwide loss due to structural failure under real fires via coupling structural engineering and fire engineering. He was a senior lecturer and programme lead of the Fire Safety Engineer (BEng) degree apprenticeship at Birmingham City University (2022-2024). Prior to this role, he was also a foreign guest researcher at the National Fire Research Laboratory, NIST (2019-2021), and post-doc at the University of Edinburgh (2017-2019) after obtaining his PhD at the same institution. Started from September 2024, he received an award from the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) in the UK, as a RAEng/Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow until August 2025. |
PhD Students
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Hongxin Zhuang started a Dual PhD scholarship in February 2024 that will be developed between the University of Liverpool (UK) and NTHU (Taiwan) under the supervision of Dr Martina Manes, Prof Eric Lin, and Dr Xu Dai. The PhD research is focused on assessing the comprehensive cost of fire incidents in buildings and developing a model for estimating the financial impacts of fire protection measures. The research aims to provide a deeper understanding of the economic consequences of fire incidents and create strategies for mitigating financial losses through effective fire protection measures. |
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Morvarid Koohkhezri started her PhD in July 2024 at the University of Liverpool under the supervision of Dr Xu Dai, Dr Martina Manes, and Dr Charlie Hopkin (Director, Ashton Fire), and also in collaboration with the academics at the University of Edinburgh. Her PhD is funded by Ashton Fire, the University of Liverpool, and Research England. Her research is focused on improving the fire safety design of open-sided car parks in the UK, especially after the incident of the London Luton Airport Car Park Fire in October 2023. |
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Richard Clark will start his PhD at the University of Liverpool in March 2025 under the supervision of Dr Martina Manes and Dr Xu Dai. Richard, who works for the National Fire Chiefs Council will focus his research on the role of fire statistics in the assessment and improvement of fire safety regulations in the UK. The research aims to provide an understanding of ‘proportionality’ and acceptable risk that can be used by regulators to enforce standards more effectively and by the Fire and Rescue Services to optimize firefighting strategies. |
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