The University of Huddersfield’s renowned Institute of Railway Research (IRR) has appointed two key Visiting Professors from the railway industry.
The move aims to further translate its research activity into real-world technology solutions and to develop new modelling tools to support a predict and prevent railway asset management strategy.
Andy Doherty, Chief Technology Officer at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence (GCRE), began his new role at the University in February this year. He will work alongside the IRR leadership team to define a long-term research plan that will seek to align the work of the Institute with the £200m investment plans for the GCRE railway system proving ground. The partnership will focus on supporting the implementation of next-generation railway technology solutions for both UK and international railway administrations.
Professor Doherty has been one of the driving forces behind the creation of GCRE in South Wales, where he currently oversees the technology strategy. GCRE will be a facility for world-class rail and mobility research, testing and showcasing of rolling stock, infrastructure and innovative new technologies. The site will be built around a state-of-the-art 6.9km high-speed test track and 4.5km lower speed high-tonnage line.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers, with more than four decades of experience in the industry. Until the autumn of 2020, Professor Doherty was Chief Rail Technology Officer for Network Rail and has held visiting Chairs at the University of Southampton and Cranfield University.
With an aim to advance the state of the art in wheel-rail damage prediction modelling, Professor Doherty is joined by Professor Mark Burstow, Senior Technical Fellow and Principal Vehicle Track Dynamics Engineer at Network Rail (NR), who was appointed a Visiting Professor at the IRR in November 2024.
Professor Burstow is a specialist in vehicle-track interaction, with extensive knowledge in wheel-rail damage prediction. His fundamental research work underpinned the learning from the tragic rail accident at Hatfield in 2000, where the underlying cause was found to be rolling contact fatigue (RCF) of the rail head, ultimately leading to a complete fracture of the rail section and consequential fatal train derailment. Professor Burstow developed internationally recognised models for RCF and wear, which have resulted in RCF crack detection and mitigation strategies that have dramatically reduced the risk of rail breaks.

The University of Huddersfield is the new home for the Centre of Archaeology, who are continuing to develop their world-renowned work in several exciting projects both in the UK and overseas.
Led by Caroline Sturdy Colls, Professor of Holocaust Archaeology and Genocide Investigation, the Centre’s team of experts investigate past human activity and highlight issues in the present day.
In particular, the team explore how conflict, genocide, human evolution, identity and climate change have shaped the world in which we live. They utilize archaeological and historical skills to find, document and preserve the evidence and heritage connected to these events.
Professor Sturdy Colls’ groundbreaking work, using non-invasive technology, discovered evidence of gas chambers and mass graves at the site of the World War 2 Nazi death camp at Treblinka in Poland in 2013. The team have investigated more than 60 Holocaust sites across Europe.
Other projects led by her colleagues Kevin Colls, Will Mitchell and Dr Daria Cherkaska have focused on the Herero and Nama Genocide in Namibia and Holocaust-era mass graves in Ukraine.
The team have brought several ongoing research projects with them to the University of Huddersfield. Linked to Treblinka is the Centre’s project around the Jewish refugee children who had lost their families in the death camp and were evacuated to the Lake District in 1945. The Centre’s experts have excavated the site of a ‘lost’ village near Windermere, and are now archiving physical evidence of the children’s time in the area.

The University of Huddersfield has been awarded a Leverhulme International Professorship grant from the prestigious Leverhulme Trust.
Professor Steve Waksman, previously Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music and Professor of American Studies at Smith College in Massachusetts, has joined the University thanks to the grant, which will also fund six post-doctoral researchers and 12 PhD studentships over the next five years. The maximum grant available was £5,000,000.
He will lead a project, fully funded by the Leverhulme grant, that will study how music and culture have developed since the invention of sound amplification.
A renowned scholar in the study of live music, music genres, music technology and musical instruments, Professor Waksman is also a particular specialist in the study of the electric guitar and rock music, as well as the author of numerous award-winning books and journal articles exploring music and live performance.
The Leverhulme International Professorships enable universities to attract leading scholars from around the world to take up permanent professorial posts in the UK. With the scheme coming to an end, this award to the University of Huddersfield will be the only Leverhulme International Professorship grant awarded for an arts-based project.
An outstanding international reputation for music and music research
“Professor Waksman’s research complements other popular music focused research expertise in music and music technology at Huddersfield, and this grant will make Huddersfield one of the largest research groups studying popular music in the world,” says Professor Rupert Till, Professor of Music and Head of the Department of Media, Humanities and the Arts at the University of Huddersfield.
“Our outstanding reputation in music and music research is backed up by our being ranked 20th in the world for Music in the 2024 QS Subject Rankings, and by our attracting such a renowned scholar as Steve Waksman.