The School of Engineering would like to extend its congratulations to Professor Mike Forde, FREng, FRSE who has been presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The award was presented at the Conference Banquet in Belfast City Hall on 2nd September 2014 by Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor James McElney, on Behalf of Queens University Belfast and the Concrete Solutions-2014 Conference.

The Lifetime Achievement Award was for sustained original contribution to the field of non-destructive testing of civil infrastructure. Mike's work involves bringing new understandings to the testing of full scale masonry arch bridges, concrete bridges and railway track bed using a variety of non-destructive testing techniques including Ground penetrating Radar (GPR), Impulse Response, Ultrasonics and Infra-red Thermography. This work also brought international recognition in the form of Honorary Membership of the Engineering Academy of Serbia in 2008, Bridge Engineering Association (USA) Bridge Research Award given in New York City, 2011; Fellowship of the American Concrete Institute (FACI), 2012; Honorary Fellow of the International Institute of Utility Specialists, Hong Kong, 2013.

The Lifetime Achievement Award also cited "facilitating international debate in the fields of construction and railway engineering for more than three decades". This is in recognition of Mike Forde's Technical Chairmanship and organisation of 15 Structural Faults & Repair International Conferences over 30 years; plus the Technical Chairmanship and organisation of 12 International Conferences on Railway Engineering.