Richard Neilson

Professor Richard Neilson serves as Director of the National Decommissioning Centre at the University of Aberdeen. With 31 years of academic experience, he focuses on engineering dynamics, decommissioning technology, and subsea engineering.

• Professor, School of Engineering
• B.Sc. (1st class), M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Mechanical/Biomedical Engineering from University of Dundee

His research spans offshore wind decommissioning, oil & gas infrastructure dismantling, and mechanical systems analysis. Key contributions include founding the MSc in Decommissioning and developing the Scottish Sensor Systems Centre.

• 2025: Multi-criteria decision-making for offshore wind decommissioning
• 2024: Hydrodynamic analysis of floating wind turbines
• 2023: Variable buoyancy anchor systems for marine applications

Professor Neilson leads high-impact industry collaborations with grants from Scottish Government, Royal Academy of Engineering, and EPSRC. His teaching includes dynamics courses (EG40JM) and mechanical design (EG3522) for BEng/MEng students.