Profile of Carron Blom

Carron is a PhD student in the Centre for Sustainable Development

Carron Blom.JPGCarron Blom has 25 years of postgraduate experience in environmental engineering and sciences.  She holds a BSc (Chemistry and Zoology) and an MSc (Environmental Science and Zoology) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.  She is a Fellow of the Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand, and Member of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Water New Zealand, and the Resource Management Law Association of New Zealand.  In 2005 she was named Young Engineer of the Year at the New Zealand Engineering Excellence awards, and in 2010, was appointed as a Deputy Environment Commissioner to the Environment Court of New Zealand.  Carron was previously a Technical Director at a large multi-national engineering consultancy, and now has her own consultancy specialising in sustainable management and development strategy. 

Her experience is focused around the leadership of multidisciplinary teams responsible for the assessment, consenting, and delivery of a range of major infrastructure.  This experience includes senior management or review roles in a number of billion dollar projects in New Zealand and Australia.  Her expertise also extends to industrial and manufacturing applications, and across a range of disciplines and contexts. 

Carron started her PhD in 2013 to further explore issues and opportunities in the systemic complexity of infrastructure and the aligned engineering processes and organisational frameworks that cocoon this.  Her thesis, which is about to be examined, is entitled 'The strategic intent and management of infrastructure systems'.  This trans-disciplinary research traversed infrastructure sectors, organisations and countries before focusing on case studies within the land transportation sector of New Zealand.  Of particular note has been the migrating of projects into the wider operating infrastructure systems that the projects are designed to transform. The research provides an evidence base for the issues plus several frameworks, and is already affecting change within the case study organisations. See:

    • Blom, C. (2014). A journey to KAOS:  Tackling "wicked" infrastructure. Paper presented at the 20th International Conference on Urban Transport and the Environment, Portugal.
    • Blom, C., De Marco, L., & Guthrie, P. (2015). Customer perceptions of road infrastructure surface conditions. Infrastructure Asset Management, 2(1), 23 –38.
    • Blom, C., & Guthrie, P. (2016a). A case for infrastructure benefit realisation through system stewardship. [Submitted to] International Journal of Transport Development and Integration.
    • Blom, C., & Guthrie, P. (2016b). Infrastructure consequential operating expenditure:  Lost in translation and time? [Accepted for peer review] Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Municipal Engineer.
    • Blom, C., & Guthrie, P. (2016c). Moving infrastructure benefits beyond projects and programmes. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Civil Engineering, 169(2), 56-56.
    • Blom, C., & Guthrie, P. (2016d). Strategic intent and the management of infrastructure systems. [Submitted] Civil engineering and environmental systems.
    • Blom, C., & Guthrie, P. (2016e). Towards an investigation of long-term infrastructure performance [online ahead of print]. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers – Engineering Sustainability. 

Carron is a member of Lucy Cavendish College.  Email: cmb216@cam.ac.uk