Delivering a fire safe heritage

Professor José L. Torero is Professor of Civil Engineering and Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London. He works in the field of safety where he specializes in complex environments such as heritage buildings, complex urban environments, novel architectures, critical infrastructure, aircraft and spacecraft. He holds a BSc for the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (1989), and an MSc (1991) and PhD (1992) from the University of California, Berkeley. He received a Doctor Honoris Causa by Ghent University (Belgium) in 2016. José is a Chartered Engineer (UK), a Registered Professional Engineer in Queensland, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (UK), the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (Australia), the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK), the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (USA), the Combustion Institute (USA) and the Royal Society of New South Wales (Australia). He is an instructed expert to the Grenfell Public Inquiry and has participated in the investigations of most of the major fires of the last twenty years, including the collapse of the World Trade Centre 1,2 & 7 buildings, the Windsor Tower fire, the Address Building fire, the Buncefield and Texas City explosions as well as the Glasgow School of Art and Notre Dame historic building fires.  The Organization of American States appointed him to the human rights commission that investigated the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, Mexico.