Saeed currently teaches on the following courses:
- BSc Construction Management
- BSc Quantity Surveying
- BSc Building Surveying
- BEng Civil Engineering
- MSc Construction Project Management
- MSc Quantity Surveying
- MSc Building Surveying
- MRes Built Environment
Saeed's research centres on AI-enabled digital twins that can transform how the built environment is designed, built, operated and maintained. His work is deployment-led, tested with industry partners on real assets, and spans three strands across the asset lifecycle:
- Digital twins for critical infrastructure: inspection, condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. Leading a portfolio of UK and international projects with a combined value of over €31.5M that combine autonomous aerial, surface and underwater vehicles, multi-modal sensing (LiDAR, thermal, acoustic, GPR and 360° imagery) and machine learning for automated defect detection, delivered as Digital-Twin-as-a-Service. Projects include STRUCTURE (railways, bridges, tunnels and runways), MariSens (offshore wind farms, harbours, platforms and subsea assets), EARHEART (BVLOS drone services for inspection and emergency response) and Panoptic Bridge Management with Network Rail, which developed the award-winning Asset Visualiser now in trial across the national bridge stock.
- Digital twins for buildings and the people in them. Reorienting digital twins from asset performance towards occupant health, wellbeing and everyday operations. Examples include the One Eastside Digital Twin (IoT and AI monitoring of air quality, energy and safety across 667 apartments in Birmingham's tallest residential building); digital twins for housing associations that support preventive maintenance and improve indoor conditions for residents with respiratory conditions such as asthma, with an open-source toolkit for social landlords; and campus digital twins that help universities optimise space utilisation and energy consumption.
- Digital twins for construction delivery and industrialised construction. Bringing digital twin thinking forward into the design, tender and production stages, where most defects and cost overruns originate. Work includes Digital-Twin-for-Tunnelling (KTP with HB Tunnelling), an AI and IoT platform that automates tender analysis, cost estimation and bills of quantities, then compares predicted with as-built performance to continuously sharpen future estimates; geometric digital twins and tolerance management to eliminate dimensional defects, one of the costliest sources of rework, in offsite and MEP prefabrication, with outputs now shaping the research agenda of the Manufacturing Technology Centre; AI-driven standardisation of construction platforms (SEISMIC III, Innovate UK BridgeAI); deep learning with BIM for automated 4D scheduling; and, as Partner Investigator, NØBEL – the Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Training Centre in Digital Platforms for Net-Zero Building Ecosystem Lifecycle, a ~AUD $16.5M programme (AUD $5.35M ARC grant plus industry and partner contributions) led by Western Sydney University with six Australian universities and sixteen industry partners, in which BCU is the UK partner organisation.
Saeed supervises several PhD students, both at BCU and internationally, in domains such as digital twins, circular economy, digital infrastructure examination, AI for construction health and safety, and modular construction, alongside a TÜBİTAK-funded postdoctoral fellow developing digital twins for automated 4D scheduling.
He has examined PhD dissertations and chaired thesis committees in the UK and globally.
He welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD candidates in AI-enabled digital twins, infrastructure inspection, smart buildings and industrialised construction.
Saeed’s list of publications can be found on his Google Scholar profile.
Professor Saeed Talebi has undertaken several interviews, featured in numerous press releases and industry publications, and appeared as an invited panellist at national conferences including the Tall Buildings Conference and the Industrialised Construction Conference.
He is keen to share his views on topics related to AI and digital twins in the built environment, digital inspection and maintenance of critical infrastructure, smart and healthy buildings (including indoor air quality), building safety and the Building Safety Act, modular and industrialised construction, data-driven construction sites, social value in housing and infrastructure, and the digital skills the sector needs. Examples include:
Examples of interviews and features:
Professor Saeed Talebi works with over 50 industry partners, from SMEs to national infrastructure operators, and is available for KTPs, consultancy, CPD and collaborative bids in areas such as:
- AI-enabled digital twins for buildings and infrastructure: scoping, architecture, proof-of-concept and deployment
- Digital inspection and condition monitoring of bridges, tunnels, railways, airports, harbours and offshore assets using drones, autonomous vessels, laser scanning, 360° imagery and machine-learning defect detection
- Smart building performance: IoT sensing and AI analytics for indoor air quality, energy and safety compliance, including open-source toolkits for social landlords
- AI for tendering, cost estimation and bills of quantities, and wider digitalisation of quantity surveying and commercial management
- Industrialised and offsite construction: dimensional tolerance management, platform standardisation and MMC adoption
- Lean construction, process improvement and circular economy strategies for contractors and clients
- Bid development and consortium building: proven track record with UK and European funding calls
