Wanda Jadwiga Lewis is a Polish-British

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

known for her work on the design of

tensile structure Tension is the pulling or stretching force transmitted axially along an object such as a string, rope, chain, rod, truss member, or other object, so as to stretch or pull apart the object. In terms of force, it is the opposite of ''compression ...

s, including nature-inspired stress-resilient forms for

arch bridge An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its structural load, loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either si ...

s. She is an emeritus professor of civil engineering at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

Education and career

Lewis is originally from

Opole Opole (; ; ; ) is a city located in southern Poland on the Oder River and the historical capital of Upper Silesia. With a population of approximately 127,387 as of the 2021 census, it is the capital of Opole Voivodeship (province) and the seat of ...

, in Poland. After earning diplomas in economics and engineering at the

University of Opole The University of Opole () is a public university in the city of Opole. It was founded in 1994 from a merger of two parallel educational institutions. The university has 17,500 students completing 32 academic majors and 53 specializations. The ...

, and a master's degree at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

, Lewis earned a PhD in 1982 at the

University of Wolverhampton The University of Wolverhampton is a public university in Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, England, located on four campuses across the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, Shropshire and Staffordshire. Originally founded in 1827 as the Wolverham ...

, as the only research assistant at the university, under the auspices of the

Council for National Academic Awards The Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) was the national degree-awarding authority in the United Kingdom from 1965 until its dissolution on 20 April 1993. Background The establishment followed the recommendation of the UK government Com ...

. After working as a schoolteacher and as a borough council structural engineer, she joined the Warwick faculty in 1986. She became the first woman in the Warwick civil engineering department to be promoted as a reader and a professor.

Book

Lewis is the author of the book ''Tension Structures: Form and Behavior'' (Thomas Telford, 2003; 2nd ed., ICE Publishing, 2018).

Recognition

Lewis is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2004, and a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, commonly known as the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), is a learned society that champions innovation and progress across a multitude of sectors by fostering creativity, s ...

in 2020.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Wanda Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British civil engineers Polish civil engineers Polish women engineers Alumni of the University of Birmingham Alumni of the University of Wolverhampton Academics of the University of Warwick Fellows of the Institution of Civil Engineers 20th-century Polish engineers 21st-century Polish engineers 20th-century British engineers 21st-century British engineers 21st-century British women engineers 20th-century British women engineers