Originally from Iceland, I grew up mostly in Belgium attending the British School of Brussels for seven years. But I have now lived most of my life in the United Kingdom, and while I currently live in the South of England, Scotland is where I call home.
I am a chartered mechanical engineer (IMechE), graduating with a first in Mechanical Engineering from Edinburgh Napier in 2010. I then completed my Masters of Science in Energy at Heriot Watt University in 2011 before starting my engineering career in Aberdeen. I worked for five years in the offshore construction industry, predominately in oil, gas and offshore wind projects. The oil and gas projects were typically cable lay projects where I designed equipment and procedures for the replacement of risers and mooring chains for floating production storage and off-take vessels (FPSOs). In offshore wind I conducted research and development into supporting technologies such as a piling noise mitigation system, foundation tooling and lifting tools. I was fortunate to go offshore on two of these projects (see Industrial Projects page for more info).
I am currently working in academia having started my PhD at the University of Southampton in 2016. My current research interests include composite materials, failure of bonded joints and experimental mechanics. I have developed many skills during the PhD, especially in thermography, digital image correlation (DIC), Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and many programming languages including Matlab, R and Python. I believe a lot of the success I have had in my career to date stems from my passion for continuous learning which has led me to develop a diverse set of skills. This has allowed me to bring a fresh perspective to many established problems, and resulted in creative and industrially relevant solutions.
Alongside my work, both in academia and industry I have always tried to share my experiences and knowledge with others. In industry I provided mentorship to junior engineers, and I supervised summer interns, undergraduate and masters students. I have also supported IMechE chartership and incorporated engineer applications. Similarly in academia, each year I have supervised students, including PhD level. More recently this has extended into teaching roles where I have led workshops and delivered teaching units.
Outside of work my main sporting passions are sailing, road cycling and skiing. I own a Hurley 22 sail boat that I maintain and upgrade. I own two road bikes, notably an old 1986 Peugeot Esprit which I restored and upgraded and a Merida Ride 77 which I use to go further afield. Whilst living in Aberdeen I regularly skied at Glenshee, and sometime Aviemore and the Lecht. I have skied a lot in the Alps (Val Thoren, Meribel, Tignes (3 valleys), Alp d’Heuz). Recently I was very fortunate that conference travelling lined up perfectly to allow a quick trip to Hotham in Australia and Camp Fortune in Quebec which something I never dreamed I would do!
I also have a keen interest in photography, never travelling without my trusty Minolta X700 and a bag full of Kodak Portra. My passion for travelling and the some of the fortunate opportunities I have had travelling for work have allowed me to take pictures in some exciting locations, a selection of which can be found in the photography section of this website.
I spend a lot of my free time working on personal projects. Many are electronics projects using Arduino or Raspberry Pi, the most substantial of which was building a home made 3D printer. For more information on any of the above please check out my other pages.