Sarah Springman

Sarah Marcella Springman, CBE, FREng (born 26 December 1956) is a British triathlete, civil engineer, and academic. She was educated in England and spent most of her recent career in Switzerland. She is currently the rector of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, also known as ETH Zurich.
Early life, education and family.
Born in 1956 in London, Springman was educated at Wycombe Abbey, where she was later a governor from 1993 to 1996. She studied engineering sciences at Cambridge University (Bachelor level) from 1975 to 1978 and returned for a MPhil in soil mechanics in 1983 and carried on her doctoral research in soil-structure interaction, earning her doctorate between 1984 to 1989. She worked as an engineer on geotechnical projects in England, Australia and Fiji (primarily on the Monasavu Dam in Viti Levu), from 1979 to 1983 and became a chartered engineer and Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1983. She is married to Rosie Mayglothling.
Academic career.
Springman was a doctoral student in the Soil Mechanics Group at Cambridge University, and was supervised initially by Professor , until he moved to the University of Western Australia in 1985, who was succeeded by Professor Malcolm Bolton. She was the first female research fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, before becoming a university lecturer in 1990. She has been professor of geotechnical engineering at ETH Zürich since 1997, and was the Deputy Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering from 2013-2014. She became Rector of ETH Zürich on 1 January 2015.
Supported by various funds to introduce computer aided learning at ETH Zurich, she worked with Dr Les Davison from the University of Western England to improve opportunities for teaching and learning of soil mechanics through the Computer Aided Learning In Civil Engineering (CALICE) project (1999-2006), which was shortlisted for a Medida Prix award in 2002. CALICE was redesigned and extended to become the GeoTechnical Information Platform (GeoTIP) (2005-2020).
The emphasis of Springman's research is on geotechnical modelling of soil structure interaction problems. Including design and construction of abutments, pile foundations, reinforced soil and ground improvement of soft and sensitive soils (e.g. sand compaction piles, dynamic compaction). Springman combines physical modelling in a geotechnical centrifuge with numerical modelling so that the data may be used to develop, calibrate or validate new design methods. At ETH Zürich, her group uses a drum geotechnical centrifuge to carry out practical studies on a range of geotechnical problems. She has been succeeded as professor of geotechnical engineering by Professor Ioannis (Yannis) Anastasopoulos.
She has also designed and led multidisciplinary field characterisation and monitoring projects in Switzerland, with her research group and partners from the PERMOS project, bringing in geotechnical competence to join state of the art geophysical and glaciological approaches, for both of the Muragl and Murtèl Corvatsch rock glaciers in the Engadin (since 1999 and 2000). The degrading permafrost in the Furggwanghorn rock glacier in the Turtmanntal presented further opportunities to add remote sensing to observe the kinematics alongside geophysical, geotechnical and hydrological investigations. Rainfall induced landslides were generated in instrumented test fields below the Gruben glacier (Canton Wallis) in 2000 and near Rüdlingen (Canton Schaffhausen) in 2009, which were backed up with slope monitoring experiments at Tössegg (Canton Zurich) and on the Bochtür (Canton Wallis), to elucidate the mechanisms behind sudden slope failure and in order to improve early warning systems. With her research group members, she has also contributed to investigations on fragmentation effects within rock avalanches.
Springman is an advocate for access for women to STEM / MINT studies and engages in many events and campaigns to support this.
In March 2021 it was announced that Springman would be the next Principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in succession to Sir Gordon Duff. She is due to take up the position on 1 February 2022.
Sporting career.
In addition to being a civil engineer, she represented Great Britain at the elite level in triathlon from 1983 to 1993, competing in the 1990 Commonwealth Games Triathlon in Auckland, New Zealand and winning twenty elite European Triathlon Union (ETU) Championship medals in triathlon and duathlon. Springman served as Vice-President of the International Triathlon Union (ITU) from 1992 to 1996, during which time, she played an important role in getting triathlon into the Olympics and as a recognised sport for the Commonwealth Games. She stepped down as President of British Triathlon on 31 December 2012 after celebrating Team GB's first triathlon medals won at an Olympic Games and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sunday Times and Sky Sports Sportswomen of the Year Awards in London in 2013. She has again served as ITU's Vice-President from 2008 to 2016, where she was again responsible for leading ITU's bid for Paratriathlon as a Paralympic sport.
She is a member of the International Olympic Committee's Sustainability and Legacy Commission. On 18 August 2016, she was chosen as a presentation official at the Olympic triathlon medal ceremony, at which brothers Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee received gold and silver medals for Team GB in Rio de Janeiro. The International Triathlon Union named her to their Hall of Fame in 2019.
She started rowing in 1994 as part of a Women's Rowing Development Project, sponsored by the ARA (now British Rowing), which was based at Thames Tradesmen Rowing Club, coached by Doug Parnham. Subsequently, she has won medals at the British Rowing Championships for Rob Roy BC in the single and quad sculls and in the Swiss National Rowing Championships for Belvoir RC (Zurich) in the single, quad sculls and women's eight and in European and World Masters Championships in various boat classes. She is a 3-time winner of the Masters CRASH-B World Indoor Rowing sprints over 2000m, and holds World and British indoor rowing records in the 60-69 age group.