Biography
Alper Kanyilmaz is an associate professor in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano in Italy. He works at the intersection of mechanics, data science, and digital technologies to deliver a safe and resilient built environment, studying how structures behave and age across their life cycle and how their dynamic response can be measured and interpreted. His research integrates structural engineering with signal processing and computational modelling (in collaboration with metrology and computer science experts), covering nonlinear dynamic analysis, inverse problems, laboratory and full-scale testing, and data-driven methods for diagnosis, prediction, and multi-objective optimization.
He has been the principal investigator of multiple EU-funded projects with a combined budget exceeding €14 million and over 40 international partners. He is an Expert Advisor for the European Commission Steel Advisory Group (SAG, Mandate 2025–2029) focused on the R&D domain of steel construction applications, and a project monitoring expert for European Commission, B.1 (Future Low Emission Industries). He teaches structural mechanics and life-cycle driven structural design, and advises industry and public bodies on digital construction and disaster-prevention strategies through MSc and PhD thesis supervision and direct consultancy.
Recently, he has built a new line of research that dual-purposes existing telecom fiber-optic networks as vibration sensors in structures. His vision is to give structures the ability to "speak" through the infrastructure that already connects them, transforming cities from passive built environments into active, self-monitoring structural observatories. His team has shown through laboratory tests that standard active telecom fibers can capture vibration signatures comparable to reference sensors, an idea that led to a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, a patent filing, and growing interest from both telecom and structural engineering communities.
Full article list / Books / Talks
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A practical guide to bringing life cycle thinking into structural design. Covering steel, reinforced concrete, mass timber and hybrid systems, the book connects embodied carbon assessment with material selection, design optimization and seismic resilience.
Through worked examples and contributions from international practice, it helps engineers, architects, students and educators evaluate structural alternatives and make informed decisions across a structure’s whole life cycle.
25 case studies | 15 countries | 6 continents
With a foreword by Alison Kinn Bennett, Executive Director of Building Transparency.
