IROE Chair, Professor Susan Gourvenec, announced as 8th McClelland lecturer

Susan Gourvenec, Professor of Offshore Geotechnical Engineering, Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies for Intelligent & Resilient Ocean Engineering (IROE) and Deputy Director of the Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute, has been announced as the 8th McClelland Lecturer by the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.

In the closing ceremony of the 5th International Symposium on Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics, held in Nantes 9-13 June 2025, Professor Phil Watson, Chair of the Offshore Geotechnics Technical Committee (TC209) of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) announced Susan’s election as the next McClelland lecturer.

The biennial lecture is a premier career achievement award and keynote lecture named in honour of Bramlette McClelland, a pioneer of modern offshore geotechnical engineering.  Susan joins an esteemed group along with the previous lecturers Don Murff (USA), Mark Randolph (Australia), Knut Andersen (Norway), Alan Young (USA), Ed Clukey (USA), Richard Jardine (UK) and Philippe Jeanjean (USA). Susan is the third academic, second UK-based engineer and first female to deliver the McClelland lecture.

Susan will deliver the 8th McClelland lecture at the Society for Underwater Technology’s 10th OSIG Conference in London in September 2027.

You can read the ISSMGE press release here: https://www.issmge.org/news/announcing-the-8th-mcclelland-lecturer-professor-susan-gourvenec

View other McClelland lectures and read the papers on the ISSMGE website: https://www.issmge.org/committees/technical-committees/applications/offshore