Dr Soroosh Sharifi BSc, MSc, PhD, FHEA

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), 2015
• PhD in Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham, 2009
• MSc in Hydraulic Structures, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, 2006
• BSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, 2003

Dr Sharifi leads environmental research at the National Buried Infrastructure Facility (NBIF), bringing together experimental investigation and computational methods to address water and infrastructure challenges. He works with academic, industry and enterprise partners in the UK and internationally, combining fundamental research with technology development and practical implementation. He is a member of the School of Engineering’s Fluids Research Group and the Birmingham Water Council.

His research addresses three interconnected challenges:

1) How infrastructure can remain resilient under changing climate and loading conditions;

2) How water can be treated, reused and recovered with lower energy, carbon and chemical demand; and

3) How reliable engineering predictions and decisions can be made under uncertainty. His work combines fluid mechanics, physical experimentation, numerical modelling, Bayesian and statistical methods, evolutionary optimisation and artificial intelligence. He has published over 60 peer reviewed journal articles in water and environmental engineering.

Alongside research supported by national and international funders, Soroosh works closely with industry and enterprise to translate research into technologies, engineering solutions and improved practice. His work with Network Rail has contributed to drainage maintenance standards and region specific weather thresholds for climate vulnerability assessment. His Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) include work with Nationwide Specialist Services, applying computational fire and smoke modelling and evolutionary optimisation to improve car park ventilation design, and with Salinity Solutions, optimising, scaling up and supporting the commercialisation of batch reverse osmosis technology for low energy desalination.

He has supervised more than 12 doctoral researchers to successful completion and currently supervises six doctoral candidates. He has served as a doctoral examiner at universities in the UK and internationally, serves on the Editorial Board of Cambridge Prisms: Water, and has delivered keynote presentations at various leading conferences and academic events. He is a member of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Peer Review College and also contributes to the assessment of research proposals for various other national and international funders.

His educational leadership roles have included Programme and Year Director, Senior Tutor, Employability Lead and Head of Education. He is currently Postgraduate Research Admissions Lead for the School of Engineering.

Soroosh holds a BSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering (2003) and an MSc in Hydraulic Structures (2006) from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. He completed his PhD in Civil Engineering at Birmingham in 2009, applying evolutionary computation to hydraulic modelling. He then spent four years as a Research Fellow at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, developing Bayesian and statistical approaches to hydroenvironmental modelling, including groundwater age, pollution source apportionment and activated sludge systems. He returned to Birmingham in 2013.

• Surface and Groundwater Hydrology (Year 3 BEng/MEng)
• Water Transmission and Treatment (Year 3 BEng/MEng)
• Open Channel Flow Hydraulics (Year 2 BEng/MEng)
• Management Information Systems and Simulation (MSc)
• Supervisor for BEng research projects, MEng individual projects and MSc dissertations

Dr Sharifi welcomes enquiries from prospective doctoral researchers across water engineering. Applicants are encouraged to email him with their research interests, qualifications and academic results, funding plans and CV. He is particularly interested in supervising projects on:

• Infrastructure resilience under changing climate and loading conditions
• Sustainable drainage, urban drainage and stormwater quality
• Low energy desalination, water reuse and resource recovery
• Water and wastewater treatment, including coagulation, flocculation and anaerobic digestion
• Deep learning, computer vision and uncertainty quantification in water systems

Research themes

• Climate resilient and intelligent infrastructure: flood and weather resilience of railways, tunnels, buildings, buried pipes and drainage systems, including sustainable drainage, railway drainage and the forensic investigation of drainage asset failure.
• Sustainable and circular water technologies: decentralised treatment with lower energy demand and opportunities for resource recovery, including batch reverse osmosis desalination, plant-based coagulants, anaerobic reactors and sustainability assessment frameworks.
• Advanced modelling and uncertainty quantification: hydroenvironmental modelling using deep learning, computer vision, Bayesian and statistical methods to support reliable predictions and decisions under climate and environmental uncertainty.

Selected current project

• Fractal mixing for water treatment: a University of Birmingham and São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil, collaboration supported by FAPESP, investigating fractal impeller designs for enhanced flocculation.
• Low energy batch reverse osmosis desalination: a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Salinity Solutions focused on modelling, optimisation, scale up and design for manufacture.
• Decentralised industrial wastewater treatment and water security: a British Council collaboration with the National Research Centre, Egypt, combining batch reverse osmosis with pretreatment and post treatment processes.

Soroosh welcomes collaboration with universities, utilities, infrastructure owners, engineering firms and technology companies. He is particularly interested in partnerships combining fundamental research with experimental validation, modelling, optimisation, technology development and practical implementation. 

Facilities

Dr Sharifi leads environmental research at the National Buried Infrastructure Facility (NBIF). Its near full scale experimental capabilities enable investigation of buried pipes, drainage systems and infrastructure performance under controlled environmental and loading conditions, including studies in the environmental chamber and pipe loop rigs. These facilities support collaborative testing, model validation and technology development with academic and industry partners.