Professor Lesley Walls
Management Science
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Prize And Awards
- Best Paper Award
- Recipient
- 24/8/2022
- IEC 1906 Award
- Recipient
- 2015
- KTP Best of the Best Award Finalist for KTP with Scottish Water and Edinburgh University
- Recipient
- 2014
- Sage Best Paper Prize Journal of Risk and Reliability
- Recipient
- 2011
- KTP Award with Scottish Water and University of Edinburgh
- Recipient
- 2010
- Elected Fellow of the UK Safety and Reliability Society
- Recipient
- 2008
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Publications
- Risk modelling for remote communities : an Inuit-driven Bayesian network approach to enhance search and rescue operations in Arctic Canada
- Belton Ian, Quigley John, Rudman Archie, Kikkert Peter, Howick Susan, Walls Lesley
- Proceedings of the 22nd ISCRAM Conference ISCRAM 2025 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.59297/bz4zhp86
- Designing a Bayesian urgency assessment tool for search and rescue in the Canadian Arctic
- Peters Joshua, Quigley John, Rudman Archie, Belton Ian, Howick Susan, Kikkert Peter, Walls Lesley
- Proceedings of the 22nd ISCRAM Conference ISCRAM 2025 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.59297/zgw11c50
- Addressing the challenges to search and rescue operations caused by ice conditions in Nunavut, Canada
- Kikkert Peter, Quigley John, Belton Ian, Brown Robert, Ennis Kerri-Ann, Goerlandt Floris, Howick Susan, Lackenbauer P Whitney, Mak Lawrence, Pedersen Calvin, Pelot Ronald, Shan Desai, Walls Lesley, Wright George
- 27th International Conference on Port and Ocean Engineering under Arctic Conditions (2023)
- Data augmentation to improve the performance of ensemble learning for system failure prediction with limited observations
- Shi Guo, Liu Bin, Walls Lesley
- 2022 13th International Conference on Reliability, Maintainability, and Safety (ICRMS) 13th International Conference on Reliability, Maintainability, and Safety: Reliability and Safety of Intelligent Systems, ICRMS 2022, pp. 296-300 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRMS55680.2022.9944577
- A data driven approach to elicit causal links between performance shaping factors and human failure events
- Johnson Karl, Morais Caroline, Patelli Edoardo, Walls Lesley
- Proceedings of the 32nd European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL 2022) European Safety and Reliability Conference, pp. 520-527 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.3850/978-981-18-5183-4_R12-12-372-cd
- Modelling epistemic uncertainty in offshore wind farm production capacity to reduce risk
- Zitrou Athena, Bedford Tim, Walls Lesley
- Risk Analysis Vol 42, pp. 1524-1540 (2022)
- https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13846
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Professional Activities
- What do I Not Know? AI, Risk and Probation
- Participant
- 12/3/2025
- Justice Leaders Workshop: AI and Risk Decision-Making
- Member of programme committee
- 1/11/2024
- European Safety and Reliability Conference ESREL 2016
- Chair
- 2016
- European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2013
- Keynote/plenary speaker
- 2013
- International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) (External organisation)
- Member
- 2013
- International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Reliability
- Keynote/plenary speaker
- 2011
Projects
- Multi-layer Predictive Control of Iron Salt Dosing for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment (International Exchanges 2025 Cost Share NSFC)
- Liu, Bin (Principal Investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2026 - 31-Jan-2027
- RSSB - SRM Adaptation
- Quigley, John (Principal Investigator) Bedford, Tim (Co-investigator) Revie, Matthew (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator)
- 02-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2025
- Strengthening search and rescue in Arctic Canada and Scotland with data collection, analysis and modelling tools
- Belton, Ian (Principal Investigator) Rudman, Archie John (Researcher) Quigley, John (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator) Howick, Susan (Co-investigator)
- The NNSAR project was focused on enhancing the Search and Rescue (SAR) system in the Canadian Arctic regions of Nunavut and Nunavik, where SAR responders – mostly volunteers – provide 24/7 response capabilities in challenging conditions with limited resources. Their services are essential for community safety and well-being. The NNSAR team has developed a novel quantitative risk model to support decision-making around the strategic allocation of resources for SAR operations.
To improve the management of SAR operations, and to maximise the impact of the NNSAR model, we have identified a need for more and better SAR data. At present, Emergency Management Organizations (EMOs) must allocate resources and seek government funding based on limited and/or anecdotal evidence only. This impact project plans to address the identified data gap in two ways.
First, we will work with Kativik Civil Security (KCS), the Nunavik EMO, to develop a rigorous process for the collection, analysis and reporting of SAR data. Those data will allow KCS to make evidence-based policy decisions to better support SAR in Nunavik and enable us to develop the NNSAR model into one with broad applicability across diverse SAR environments.
Second, we aim to extend the reach of our impact to Scotland. As in Nunavik, Scottish mountain rescue relies on a committed group of volunteers operating in a challenging environment. The two SAR systems share many features, notably growing caseloads that are increasing the strain on responders and the system as a whole. The data available in Scotland are much more detailed than in Nunavik but are currently underutilised. We will form a new partnership with Mountaineering Scotland to:
1. Apply the NNSAR model to existing Scottish mountain rescue data – this can both improve the model and provide useful insights for Scotland, which will translate back to Canada; and
2. Apply learning from the novel Nunavik SAR data collection process to enhance data collection within Scotland.
The outcomes of this project will include enhanced SAR in Nunavik and Scotland, stronger relationships with external partners, and the construction of a risk model with wide application to emergency management operations across the world. - 02-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2025
- Resilient Digitalising Infrastructure (ReDI) SCDT
- Walls, Lesley (Principal Investigator) Patelli, Edoardo (Co-investigator) White, Chris (Co-investigator) Irvine, James (Co-investigator) Strens, Fiona (Co-investigator) Anderson, Heather (Administrator)
- The ReDI (Resilience in Digitalising Infrastructure) SCDT aims to produce ‘new resilience thinkers’ – not just in the graduates we deliver but also in the building of a whole community including staff from partner and stakeholder organisations and academics working in relevant fields.
ReDI will innovate in how the doctoral-level studentships are delivered, aligning ambitions between industry and academics, borrowing from the cohort approach proposed in the original EPSRC CDT and making the most of the freedoms implicit in an independently funding model. Our Industry partners and co-funders are keen to support this programme which aligns with their ambitions, including:
•Partners should together shape high level ‘challenge themes’ to reflect real world context;
•The themes should drive a co-creation process for PhD project definition involving partners, academics and students;
•‘Resilience Foundations’ training upfront should provide students with a shared, baseline understanding of key risk and resilience topics;
•Partners should be engaged with the whole student cohort (although individual students may be industry co-supervised and take on placements);
•A programme of activities should be supported to bring together partner staff with academics, students and other stakeholders to develop shared knowledge and build a community.
Financial summary:
University SCDT funds: £180,000
External funds: £490,000 (Strathclyde share of £980,000 from industry & NPL)
Total Strathclyde project value: £670,000 - 01-Jan-2025 - 30-Jan-2028
- ReMake Value Retention Centre
- Fitzpatrick, Stephen (Principal Investigator) MacBryde, Jillian (Co-investigator) MacLeod, Charles Norman (Co-investigator) Pierce, Gareth (Co-investigator) Revie, Matthew (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator) Wynne, Bradley (Co-investigator) Hernandez, Jose Luis (Research Co-investigator) Liu, Zhe (Research Co-investigator) Reimer, Andreas (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2028
- COst Forecasting Framework with Expert and Analogous Data (COFFEAD)
- Quigley, John (Principal Investigator) Liu, Bin (Co-investigator) Revie, Matthew (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator)
- 15-Jan-2024 - 15-Jan-2026