Dr Sameer Mehra is the Assistant Lecturer for Timber Technologies and Wood Manufacturing at the Dublin School of Architecture, College of Engineering and Built Environment, Technological University Dublin -City Campus, Bolton Street. 

 

For the last 10 years, Dr Mehra has been closely involved in various activities related to forestry, wood science, international timber trade and timber engineering. In March 2021, he was awarded a PhD in Engineering for his work on “Development of Non-metallic and Adhesive-free timber-timber moment connections using Compressed Wood Connectors” from the National University of Ireland (NUIG) Galway, Ireland. As a part of his PhD, he worked on an Interreg North-West Europe research project titled “Towards Adhesive Free Timber Buildings (AFTB)”. In this project, Sameer has designed, developed, and built environment-friendly Engineered Wood Products (EWPs) from plantation grown timber species. By the end of this project, Sameer successfully developed and tested novel non-metallic and adhesive-free EWPs as an alternative to energy-intensive construction material like steel and concrete. In particular, he developed compressed wood dowel laminated timber products and all timber-timber connection systems using high-density wood connectors. Dr Mehra has represented AFTB at various international conferences, seminars, and exhibitions Asia, Europe, and North America. He strongly believes that what he researches in the laboratory should benefit society directly. To achieve this outreach, he has drafted and published various technical reports and research articles on sustainable utilization of wood resources to mitigate the climate change effect and promote the concept of circular bioeconomy. 

 

Dr Mehra also has an MSc Degree in Wood Science and Technology from Forest Research Institute University, Dehradun, India and a BSc Degree in Forestry from the University of Agricultural Sciences Dharwad, Karnataka, India. During his MSc research, he worked on Trans-esterification and acetylation of Eastern cottonwood. He also has a postgraduate diploma in International Timber Trade from École Supérieure du Bois, Nantes, France. 

 

With regards to his laboratory expertise, Dr Mehra is familiar with using structural testing machines such as Instron 4466 (10 kN), Instron 4467(30 kN), Dartec (500 kN) and Denison (500 kN). In addition to these, he also has experience working with various material characterisation devices such as Light Microscope, FTIR analyzer, Accelerating Weathering tester and LabScan XE colorimeter. On the side of numerical modelling and statistical analysis, he has experience working with Abaqus, Ansys, SPSS and Minitab. Concerning his industry experience, Dr Mehra worked as an Assistant Manager (Quality Control) and a Merchandiser, in the Indian handicrafts and furniture industry and has visited several wood industries in Ireland and around the world.

 

In 2016, Sameer successfully qualified for the National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted by the Agricultural Scientist Recruitment Board – ASRB (Government of India) for Assistant Professorship/ Lectureship. During his doctoral degree, he worked as a teaching assistant and a lab demonstrator for undergraduate and postgraduate courses at NUI Galway. He handled courses such as Timber Engineering, Strength of the material, Concrete technology and Computational methods in engineering analysis using Ansys. 

 

Dr Mehra’s teaching philosophy is mainly focused on four key points: (1) helping students to develop critical thinking skills that benefit them throughout life, (2) making connections between classroom concepts and empirical research to increase scientific literacy, (3) using creativity and multiple teaching approaches to accommodate diverse learning styles, and (4) fostering a supportive learning environment that helps students take responsibility for their learning.