Dr. Beatriz Martinez-Pastor is an Assistant Professor in the School of Civil Engineering at University College Dublin (UCD) and the Director of the Centre for Critical Infrastructures Research. She completed her PhD at Trinity College Dublin and her MSc at the University of Cantabria.
Her research focuses on transport system resilience, infrastructure vulnerability, and the behaviour of complex transport networks under disruption. In particular, her work examines how failures and extreme events affect system-level performance, accessibility, and the ability of transport networks to sustain essential societal functions. With over 12 years of experience in research and practice, she has developed approaches to assess infrastructure criticality, disruption impacts, and resilience strategies that support evidence-based policy and investment decisions for more robust and adaptive transport systems.
Dr. Martinez-Pastor has coordinated two Horizon Europe projects: SETO (Smart Enforcement of Transport Operations, €4 million, 14 partners) and the Coordination and Support Action for organising TRA2024 (€1.5 million, 15 partners). She is currently the Principal Investigator of the Horizon Europe project NBSINFRA (€5 million, 17 partners). She is also the Principal Investigator and Academic Leader of STRADA and STRADA2, European initiatives aimed at developing leadership programmes for women in engineering. In addition, she is the Co-Principal Investigator of the Science Foundation Ireland project CAPABLE (Resilience Challenge) and the co-leader of the transport strand in the large national research project NEXSYS.
Dr. Martinez-Pastor has managed more than €7 million in research funding and has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers. Prior to joining academia, she worked as a consultant in industry, contributing to major transport planning and infrastructure projects, including the Irish National Roads 2040 strategy. She has also been involved in several European research initiatives, including the FP7 project RAIN and the Horizon 2020 project RESILIENS.
