Dr David Polson

David is a professional engineer with over 25 years’ experience delivering building and industrial services designs in the UK and many other countries around the world.

He began his career designing plant and services for the dairy industry and moved to the design of services for buildings. After running a successful building services consultancy in his home country of New Zealand, he migrated to the United Kingdom in 2007. Between 2007 and 2016, David worked for Arup and delivered building services design for landmark buildings around the world.

Prior to joining the University of Sheffield, David was responsible for managing a team of services engineers for Arup’s office in Nottingham. The team included mechanical and electrical engineers, CAD technicians and apprentices who ranged from recent graduates to chartered engineers with more than 20 years’ experience.

David has always enjoyed working with young people and both inspires and is inspired by their creativity and enthusiasm. He uses this drive to help keep Sheffield at the forefront of tertiary engineering institutions.

He is also a passionate maker and has built a wide range of gadgets including a series of 3D printers. He is enthusiastic about designs which can be built and controlled using emerging technologies such as 3D printing, microcontrollers, low cost sensors and low energy communications and is keen to work with students to develop exciting and innovative ideas. More recently he has been focusing on the integration of open source design into higher education.

David runs an open door policy and if there is nothing in his calendar and his door is open, students are free to come in and talk about anything that is on their mind. When David is teaching, he also provides dedicated open office hours which are shown in his calendar. His office and contact information can be found above and his calendar is available here (you will need to be logged into MUSE to access).