Engineering Resilience: Designing the World’s Tallest Buildings for a Changing Climate

Principal and the Americas North Operations Director, Arup

Melissa Burton is a Principal and the Americas North Operations Director based in Arup’s Toronto office. She oversees a variety of project work and actively looks to bring together the right teams to collaborate and develop creative, robust solutions to realize our client’s visions. She has broad leadership experience including developing new business, leading innovation, and growing teams.

Melissa is a professional engineer who focuses on the intersection of the built and natural environments and has nearly two decades of experience in climate modelling and wind engineering. She actively engages with academic and industry partners to progress climate risk, with a particular focus on windstorms and resilience thinking. Melissa has recently aided in the development of the resilience-based design guidelines REDi for Extreme Windstorms, and she frequently speaks on panels with a focus on climate change considerations, connecting climate and community resilience, and resilient design.