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Prof Elsabe Kearsley graduated with a BEng(Civil) degree from the University of Pretoria in 1984 and has been doing research at UP for the past 31 years.Her research is focussed on reducing the environmental impact of the cement and concrete industry. As this industry is one of the largest greenhouse gas producers in the world it is important to find ways of reducing the carbon footprint through improving our understanding of materials, optimising the use of raw materials, and maximising the re-use and recycling of waste materials.

Since 2000 has supervised or is currently supervising 24 Masters research degrees and 12 PhD research degrees. Within her academic discipline she and her research team are working on a variety of projects to improve our understanding of the behaviour of cement and concrete used in infrastructure with the aim of reducing environmental impact and wastage. These projects include:

• Structural health monitoring where infrastructure such as bridges, pavements and piled footings of large wind masts are instrumented to determine the short- and long-term reaction to loads and environmental effects such as temperature, humidity and wind speed variation on the stresses that develop. These results indicate that climate change could have a significant effect on infrastructure behaviour.
• Ultra High Performance concrete where high strength and ductility can be used to reduce the volume of concrete required in infrastructure projects. This can also reduce the volume of raw materials and water required in infrastructure projects.
• The use of industrial waste and recycled materials in concrete to reduce the volume of raw materials required for infrastructure development.
• Optimising concrete mix compositions to reduce the financial and environmental cost, while improving the short- and long-term properties of the material.
• Improving concrete behaviour such as low tensile strength and brittle failure mechanisms, to expand the use of this relatively cheap building material into areas where concrete was historically not useable.

Current teaching duties

-  Supervising PhD and Masters students

-  Supervising undergraduate final year research project students (SSC411)

-  SWK211 – Statics for Civil Engineers

-  SBM321 – Civil Building Materials

-  SIN324 – Reinforced concrete design

-  SGC 794 – Concrete Technology for graduate students

Current research interests

-  Physical modelling of soil structure interaction problems in the geotechnical centrifuge.

-  Ultra-Thin Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavements (UTCRCP).

-  Alkali-Activated cements and concrete.

-  Foamed Concrete.

-  Fibre Reinforced Concrete.

-  Ultra-high strength Concrete.

-  Physical and mathematical modelling of concrete.

-  Waste materials in cement and concrete.

Publications list  (Google Scholar profile)

Publications list