Our Sustainability and Resilience team has unmatched experience in climate change adaptation, lifecycle assessment, economic evaluation and sustainable future mobility.
Meet our team.
Dr Clarissa Han leads the Sustainability and Resilience Strategic Working Group (SWG) in delivering high profile research on the use of recycled or alternative materials for sustainable road and transport infrastructure, assessment and development of resilient infrastructure, climate change adaptation, environmental impact assessment and advisory, life cycle assessment and economic evaluations of transport options, and sustainable future mobility solutions.
Clarissa also advises our Future Transport Systems Division in her capacity as Principal Technology Leader with 23+ years of engineering and research experience in traffic studies and analysis, congestion cost estimation, transport management and operations, and emerging ITS technologies and tools.
After joining ARRB in 2007, Clarissa has been the major contributor to various national guidelines, standards and specifications in network operations, traffic and transport management and ITS evaluation and benchmarking. Clarissa is leading the Australian national forum on 'Excessive congestion cost and travel time reliability cost’. She is also researching and delivering the Movement and Place Framework and impact assessment of emerging transport modes on community, society and environment.
Clarissa has been the TRB peer reviewer of multiple mobility committees over the past decade. She is the current Australian member of the PIARC Mobility Strategic Theme TC2.4 Road Network Operations/ITS (2020-24) and the Working Group Leader of TC2.4.2. Clarissa is also the board member of the International Road Federation (IRF). She is a regular speaker on various international conferences or forums such as the TRB Annual Meeting, the ITS World Congress and PIARC conferences etc.
Brook leads the economics stream within the Sustainability and Resilience team. Brook is an accomplished and results-driven leader with more than 15 years of experience in state and national government agencies.
Since joining ARRB, Brook has led projects on life cycle and economic analyses, climate change adaptation, and implementing value creation and capture initiatives into major road projects.
Brook is an accredited Infrastructure Sustainability professional who can help infrastructure planners, designers, builders and operators evaluate life cycle sustainability impacts and economic costs and advise on viable innovations e.g. using recycled materials.
Brook specialises in stakeholder engagement and delivering outcomes that exceed customer expectations. He is passionate about environmental sustainability and delivering outcomes that maximise community and industry benefits.
Katie is a Principal Professional within the Sustainability and Resilience Team at ARRB and is leading the environmental management stream.
Her extensive environmental engineering and environmental law experience has supported large manufacturing and public organisations to understand their obligations, go beyond compliance and reduce environmental risks, lower costs, improve productivity and enhance their reputation.
Katie has developed and audited certified environmental management systems and evaluated environmental management plans.
Katie has project managed innovative cleaner production initiatives in the areas of waste, water and energy.
Melissa is a qualified Materials Engineer and Scientist who specialises in applied research and consultancy projects in the bitumen, asphalt and pavement materials space.
In the Sustainability and Resilience team, Melissa with State Road Agencies, sustainability agencies and industry bodies, such as Tyre Stewardship Australia, to fast track the use and specifications for recycled materials in road infrastructure.
In 2017–18, Melissa was seconded to Victoria DoT (VicRoads) where she helped manage and deliver road rehabilitation projects across Victoria.
Robert is a qualified Engineer and Economist with a PhD in Economics and Management.
He has extensive knowledge and international experience working on battery-electric vehicles and related future transportation systems, having researched and developed projects on future urban transportation and sustainable mobility solutions in Singapore and Germany.
He has also been involved in solar-electric vehicle design and development, including Australian World Solar Challenge events as a member of a Brisbane-based solar car team.
At ARRB, Robert is studying congestion impacts of smart parking innovations and developing a sustainability assessment model for measuring life cycle greenhouse gas emissions and costs for innovative pavement designs.
Stephanie is a Senior Professional Engineer with qualifications in both Materials Engineering and Science Communication.
Stephanie offers a unique skill set combining technical understanding with a strong focus on effective communication throughout the planning, implementation and delivery stages of projects.
Stephanie is currently working on asphalt trials using recycled crushed glass as a replacement for natural sand on local roads for a number of local councils.
Her experience also includes the evaluation of raised safety platforms, driver and pedestrian behaviour for the Safe System Road Infrastructure Program (SRIPP). Stephanie is leading the delivery of Construction Logistics and Community Safety-Australia (CLOCS-A), where she facilitates engagement across transport, construction and planning sectors to focus on improved safety outcomes for heavy vehicle and vulnerable road users.
As an award finalist in the Collaboration category for the 2018 ARRB Values Awards, Stephanie is recognised for her adaptable approach in working across multi-disciplinary teams. She is also an enthusiastic committee member of the Road Engineering Association of Asia and Australasia (REAAA) Road Safety Technical Committee and Australian representative on the World Road Association (PIARC) Technical Committee 2020-2023 for Road Safety.
James leads the recycled and alternative materials stream within the Sustainability and Resilience team.
He is currently working on several projects related to the utilisation of waste resources in road infrastructure. These are focused on glass in asphalt and in granular sublayers. He also has plenty of experience looking at reclaimed asphalt pavement, crumb rubber modified asphalt and warm mix asphalt technologies.
Since joining ARRB James’ work has been focused on improving knowledge on foamed bitumen stabilised pavements and the use of lightly cemented materials in pavement construction.
He has also conducted new research on the addition of nanosilica to asphalt to improve properties and the addition of recycled crushed glass to asphalt to help reduce waste stockpiles.
James has a PhD in Metallurgy and Materials from the University of Birmingham in the UK.
James worked for 13 years as a researcher at the Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre at the University of Nottingham in the UK. During this time, he worked on and managed projects involving the permanent deformation and fatigue properties of asphaltic materials, moisture damage in asphalt pavements, adhesion of bitumen to aggregate, warm mix asphalt technologies, the use of crumb rubber and recycled asphalt and alternative binders.
His main research interests are the fundamentals of adhesion, moisture damage of asphaltic materials, recycling and the use of secondary materials.
He has published more than 100 journal papers and peer reviewed conference papers. He is a Director-at-large of the International Society of Asphalt Pavements, on the Editorial board for the Proceedings of the Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists and involved in several RILEM Technical Committees looking at bituminous and asphaltic materials.
Lydia is a skilled Environmental Engineer who specialises in sustainability, safety and future mobility research and evaluations.
Her project successes include life cycle greenhouse gas emissions, and cost evaluations for innovative pavement designs, the Pedestrian Investment Program Evaluation for the Safe System Road Infrastructure Program, and the short-term evaluation of raised safety platforms.
In successfully delivering these projects, Lydia has developed skills in project management, data processing, survey design, stakeholder consultation, and moderating focus groups.
She is currently working on various life cycle evaluation projects, "Towards Zero" safety features study for the Victorian Department of Transport and other projects relating to recycled materials in roads.
Simon has over 10 years of experience in the applications of economic analysis and research to infrastructure project evaluation, regulation and policy questions. His sector experience includes public transport, highways, shipping ports, environmental and natural resources, and retail petrol markets.
Simon has evaluated the benefits of nourishing public beaches in South Melbourne, and developed a cost-benefit analysis framework to evaluate the return on maintaining public coastal assets in the context of climate change.
Simon also contributed to the competition monitoring and government intervention framework for the container stevedoring industry in South Australia. He was also an advisor to a brown coal development company, where he has provided advice on the financial, economic and regulatory feasibility of a green-field project that held significant economic potential for Victoria.
Simon holds a PhD in economics from the University of Melbourne and his work has been published in the Australian Economic Review.
Umer is a Ph.D researcher at Monash University with extensive experience in the design and analysis of experiments, materials synthesis and testing, product development/formulation, technical report writing, pilot-scale plant commissioning, installation, and operation.
Prior to joining ARRB, Umer worked on a project funded by Tyre Stewardship Australia for the process intensification of waste to energy technology which involves the fundamental scientific research and commercialisation of scrap tyre Pyrolysis process.
Javad has more than 11 years of extensive research, industry and teaching experience in the area of pavement and geotechnical engineering.
His main focus of research has been on recycling wastes, particularly industrial by-products such as fly ash and slag, for the construction of sustainable infrastructures and creating a circular economy.
Prior to joining ARRB in January 2021, Dr Yaghoubi was a post-doctoral research fellow and sessional lecturer at Federation University, Victoria. During this time, he worked on and managed various projects for the government and industries in the Gippsland area.
Javad has undertaken a PhD at Swinburne University in Geotechnical Engineering.
The title of his PhD was Ground Improvement of Soft Soils by Deep Soil Mixing Using Industrial By-Products, in which the physical, mechanical and environmental properties of fly ash and slag-based geopolymeric binders were investigated.
During his PhD, Javad was an assistant lecturer and also worked on other research and industry projects on utilisation of construction and demolition, recycled glass, recycled plastic granules and recycled foundry sand in roadwork applications.
