Vita Sanderson​

Vita is a chartered structural engineer who currently works at Arup where she supports development clients on the implementation of infrastructure, particularly in health and education. She is currently also the Chair of the board at the Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) operational HQ in Amsterdam which has governance over programming decisions for their portfolio of humanitarian response projects globally as well as an elected trustee of MSF UK.   

Vita worked in Nepal following the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, joining a team constructing UNICEF Transitional Learning Centres in remote Himalayan communities. Following this, Vita began working for Médecins Sans Frontières as field staff within the Construction and WASH team, initially in south-eastern Ukraine, before moving to South Sudan, where she was Technical Project Coordinator in Agok.  

While at Arup, she worked on large-scale school retrofitting and reconstruction programmes in Western Nepal and Peru and in Zimbabwe in response to Cyclone Idai. Recently, she has focused on supporting countries in improving the resilience, sustainability, and inclusivity of their buildings through the strengthening of their Building Regulations and Codes, working in Myanmar, Zanzibar, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka.  

Vita has an honorary doctorate in Humanitarian Engineering from the University of Warwick and received the Smeaton Medal in 2021 for work in engineering to reduce risk in places where the effects of natural disasters or conflict significantly impact populations.