Suzanne Wilkinson

Keynote Speaker Bio

Suzanne Wilkinson is a Professor of Construction Management in the School for Built Environment, Massey University and Associate Dean (Research), College of Sciences, Massey University. She has a PhD in Construction Management, and a BEng (Hons) in Civil Engineering, both from Oxford Brookes University, and a Graduate Diploma in Business Studies (Dispute Resolution) from Massey University.
Suzanne’s research focuses on resilience, disaster management, construction innovation and smart cities. She is interested in how cities, communities and organisations plan for disasters and manage hazard events and has a particular interest in how cities, communities and organisations rebuild and recover. Suzanne has been advisor to organisations on resilience building and disaster recovery, most recently including Auckland Council, Government Agencies in New Zealand and Hunter Water in Australia. Suzanne has been Principal Investigator and Research Leader on many projects, including a recent 5 year, $10 million NZD project, where she is programme lead, on building capacity and capability for the construction sector and a recently completed 4million NZD Principal Investigator for the Urban theme in the National Science Challenge: Resilience to Nature’s Challenges. She has published over 300 research papers and co-written 3 books, the most recent being Resilient Post Disaster Recovery Through Building Back Better (Routledge in 2019), with her colleagues Sandeeka Mannakkara and Regan Potangaroa. Suzanne is a keen PhD supervisor and has now supervised to completion over 30 PhD students.