Chair Of The Board Of Trustees, Oneworldwomen

Policy Fellow Alum, Centre for Science and Policy

Dr Deborah Pullen is a board director, coach, technical advisor, and Chair Of The Board Of Trustees, Oneworldwomen.

Previously, Deborah was the Group Research Director at the Building Research Establishment (BRE), leading the delivery of the current £20M research and publications work both and at BRE and its five University Centres of Excellence. This also encompassed the BRE Trust Future Cities programme, which now has over 70 partners from academia, industry and public sector with a collective value of £10M. Deborah was the Executive Director of the BRE Trust until 2021.

Deborah was also the Director of the Modern Built Environment Knowledge Transfer Network (MBEKTN),funded by the Technology Strategy Board, which now has over 15,000 members from government, industry and academia. The overarching remit of both the MBEKTN and the BRE Trust is to provide leadership and support to the wider UK built environment supply chain, developing and harnessing innovation for transformational change to support international growth. Deborah’s role enabled her to align activities that she had direct responsibility for and also that of others where she has influence.

Deborah is a member of:

• The UKTI Construction Industry Steering Group and Smart Cities Task Group
• The IOM3 Construction Materials Group and the CIOB Research & Innovation Group
• The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Engineering Strategic Advisory team
• The UK National Platform for Construction
• The Green Construction Board ‘Promotions’ and ‘Greening’ task groups
• The Board of the European Network for Building Research Institutes (ENBRI)

She is also Chair of the AIRTO Task Group for the Built Environment.

Deborah has a BSc (Hons) in Materials Science from UMIST, followed by a PhD in Polymer Chemistry, is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials. After completing three further years of post-doctoral research at the University of Birmingham, Deborah has spent the last 20 years working at a number of government and private technology organisations (Ciba, DERA, QinetiQ, TWI) leading research teams and business units focused on high performance material applications across a range of sectors including defence, aerospace, oil & gas, autosport and marine. Deborah also successfully completed a post-graduate certificate in sustainable business at Cambridge University in 2012.