Simon Benson

Background

About Simon Benson

I am a chartered naval architect, an engineering educator and an academic. I am currently undertaking a new challenge, training to be a secondary school teacher through the National Maths and Physics SCITT. From September 2025 I will be teaching post-16 engineering in the North East. Watch this space! I also work with the Flipflopi project and I'm an associate lecturer at Newcastle University, where I was previously a full-time senior lecturer in naval architecture since 2012. I became a naval architect because I raced sailing boats and I wanted to design them. I never quite got to that, but instead my degree opened up the maritime world. I've since been lucky to be involved in many varied projects and research challenges in maritime. I also discovered a love of teaching through sailing, working in several sailing schools in Spain and the UK. So becoming an academic worked well for me, especially because I could continue connecting with young people who shared my interests. I'm a long termer at Newcastle University, specialising in ship structures, and I'm proud of everything we 'marine techs' have achieved, together with our amazing students (who now form a big part of my LinkedIn alumni network!). And I've now come full circle, working with the Flipflopi project to design.sailing boats! When the weather is right we still go sailing in our family Mirror dinghy. I've also managed to get back into Laser racing too (thanks Dad!). If you are interested in my academic work, my google scholar profile is here: & hl=en