Miss Sarah Catmur

Sarah joined the University of East London in 2000. She studied Civil Engineering at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London and  gained site experience working for Balfour Beatty on both the Bristol Bulk Handling Terminal and the widening of the North Circular (Hangar Lane to Harrow Road). Sarah worked as a research assistant on the large-scale experimental Flood Channel Facility at Hydraulic Research Wallingford Ltd, carrying out an experimental investigation looking at sediment transport in meandering rivers. 

Sarah teaches fluid mechanics, practical surveying classes as well as supervising final year projects. She takes part in surveying and geology field trips undertaken by students on the civil engineering and surveying courses.

Sarah is the Civil Engineering and Geospatial and Mapping Science degree apprenticeship lead. She manages the everyday running of the apprenticeships, in conjunction with the underpinning subject course leaders. Sarah takes a lead role in conducting apprenticeship Tripartite meetings - the three-way review meetings (held between UEL, the employer and the apprentice) which are essential to ensure that our apprentices are give the full range of support that they need. Sarah is an active member of Apprentice Compliance Sub Committee, ACSC, working with pan-institutional teams to share best practice across the institution to reduced risk and improve institutional compliance. 

As a senior academic member in the school Sarah have been a course leader for 17 years. Prior to leading the degree apprenticeships she led our flagship BEng Civil Engineering programme for six years,  MEng Civil Engineering for three years and extended engineering programmes for 12 years. Sarah has served on several panels for programme validation; internal quality review and student complaints/appeals.

As a member of the Association of Civil Engineering Departments (ACED) committee,  networking with industry professionals and civil engineering colleagues from HE institutions UK wide, Sarah contributes to the enhancement of the quality of teaching of civil engineering.

Sarah is an active member of our industrial advisory board and works closely with employers via our degree apprenticeship programmes. She is the staff liaison officer for the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and actively promotes student membership, participation in the ICE Graduates and Students Network as well as CPD and networking events at the ICE.  

With a focus on employment readiness and improving student experience Sarah worked closely with UEL's mentoring team to adapt their "community” and "professional” mentoring schemes to align with the specific needs of our engineering students. Between 2016-19 industry mentors were successfully secured for 100% of our level 5 BEng (Hons) Civil Engineering students. Since 2020 the scheme has been successfully expanded the scheme to offer a similar experience, as part of our level 5 mental wealth module, to all students across all undergraduate courses within in our Engineering & Construction subject areas.