Sri Lankan Ishan Kavan Abeysekera, being 1st Class (Warwick), MSc Earthquake Engineering (Imperial College London), DIC, CEng MIMechE, has won the prestigious “Young Structural Engineering Professional Award 2022” of the Institution of Structural Engineers.

The Institution is one of the world’s leading professional bodies providing professional accreditation. It is a professional body for structural engineering, headquartered in the United Kingdom, and has approximately 30,000 members, operating in over 100 countries, worldwide.

The Institution press release states:

‘The Young Structural Engineering Professional Award is an internationally recognised mark of achievement that highlights young engineers who are driving the profession forward. Being a recipient of this award shows that they have demonstrated the skills and achievements necessary to mark them as “one to watch” among the Institution’s global membership.

After a rigorous judging process, we are thrilled to announce that Ishan Abeysekera is the recipient of the 2022 Young Structural Engineering Professional Award.

While all entrants to this year’s award were of high quality, the judges selected four exceptional finalists for shortlisting, including Ishan Abeysekera, who were invited to the competition’s final round.

The final four all demonstrated a variety of quality skills and achievements which promises a bright future for structural engineering, however, the judges eventually narrowed it down to Ishan Abeysekera and Lauren Barnes.

Ishan proved to be the deserving winner of the 2022 Young Structural Engineering Professional Award. He impressed the judges from the get-go with his significant technical knowledge, as well as his achievements in teaching and inspiring the next generation of engineers. In his final interview with the judging panel, Ishan further proved his technical skills in coding and working with timber structures, as well as an evident passion for the profession.

Ishan showcased his impressive skills and achievements marking him as “one to watch”.’

Ishan was born in 1991, in Colombo, and is the only child of Harindra and the late Priyani Abeyasekera. He was educated at S Thomas’s Preparatory School, Kollupitiya, and The British School, in Colombo, where he was the Head Prefect.

Ishan is a Senior Engineer in the Advanced Technology and Research Department at Consultant Engineers Ove Arup and Partners International Limited. As well as project work at Arup, Ishan provides AdHoc technical advice to colleagues around the Arup globe on non-standard structural problems requiring first principles analysis. He also provides internal training to other Arup engineers on Nonlinear structural analysis, structural dynamics, existing buildings and timber structures.

Ishan is one of the youngest members of a Europe wide committee of experts writing the next version of the Eurocodes (Europe and UK wide standards for structures) for timber structures.

He is also passionate about engineering education and is an invited guest lecturer at Imperial College London and Cambridge University.

In the field of charity he is an active Honorary Director and Trustee of the International Students Club (Church of England) Limited which administrates a student hostel in London.