Your 2025 Judging Panel

The judging panel for the Bridges Awards 2025 is chaired by José María Sánchez de Muniáin, editor of Bridge design & engineering magazine, and includes the following respected and independent bridge professionals:

 

Ian Firth is a structural engineer and bridge designer with over 40 years of experience. Ian started his career at the Flint & Neill engineering consultancy of which he became a partner in 1990 at the age of 34. After the firm joined Cowi, Ian became chief operating officer of the new entity. He was the 2017 President of the Institution of Structural Engineers, was chairman of the British Group of IABSE, and is a trustee of the bridgebuilding charity Bridges to Prosperity. Ian has been an independent structural engineering consultant since 2018 and is also a visiting professor in conceptual and creative structural design at the University of Warwick. He was the 2022 recipient of the annual Bridge Owners Forum Lifetime Achievement Award and was awarded IABSE’s Member of the Year Award in 2024.

 

 

 

Santosh Singh is a chartered civil and structural engineer with over 25 years of experience in consultancy and client organisations, managing and delivering multidisciplinary transport infrastructure projects. He is group manager and head of specialism at National Highways. Santosh has an in-depth experience in asset management, engineering leadership, delivering, and sponsoring projects from business planning stage to commissioning. Santosh served as the chair of Concrete Bridge Development Group. He is a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and Member of the Institution of Structural Engineers. He is structural safety expert panel member at Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures.

 

 

 

Ezra Groskin is an architect with over 20 years of experience who specialises in bridge design and construction. He is a director at Moxon Architects where he has worked primarily within their bridge group for nine years. Previously Ezra was a senior architect at Wilkinson Eyre Architects and before that he worked as a designer at USA-based SHoP Architects. He is also a member of the UK Net Zero Bridges Group and has presented technical papers at several bridge conferences.

 

 

 

Trish Johnson is a chartered civil engineer with over 30 years of experience and a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. She is the first woman to be appointed as Bridgemaster of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol and has looked after the bridge since 2016. Previously Trish was head of engineering and maintenance at the Severn Bridge and the Second Severn Crossing and before that she looked after bridges and highways across the South West for engineering consultant Mouchel. Trish also served as south-west regional director for the Institution of Civil Engineers for five years. She is a keen advocate of engineering and sits on the University of the West of England Advisory Board for Civil Engineering and is a ‘Women Like Me’ Mentor.

 

 

 

Sue Threader is a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers with senior-level experience in the public, private and charity sectors. She has been chief executive of the medieval Rochester Bridge Trust, which owns three estuary bridges, for the last 18 years. Sue is a Board Member of the City Bridge Foundation, the charity which looks after five Thames Bridges in the City of London and is the first woman to be elected to the historic position of City Bridgemaster since the role’s inception in 1282. Sue writes on bridge engineering and has appeared on Channel 5 with Rob Bell sharing her expertise on historic bridges.  She is the Chair of the ICE Archives Panel. She holds an Honorary Doctorate and an ICE award for outstanding career contribution to civil engineering. She was shortlisted for Charity Chief Executive of the Year three times.

 

 

 

Andy Cross is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He is a Rail Civil Engineer with over 30 years of experience in asset management, design, construction and project management, with Bridges his main area of expertise. Currently, an Engineering Expert in the Rail Investment Centre of Excellence involved with the Better Value Footbridge programme. He  continues to lead the development of the FLOW footbridge, from an R&D project to a production ready version. Previously, Andy was Route Asset Manager at Network Rail, first for civil engineering and latter for structures for the Wales Region where was responsible for over 10,000 assets, over 3300 of them bridges.