Dr Lara Harris is a Research Fellow in Digital Twin Measurement Systems at the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME), within the Research Centre for Manufacturing and Materials at Coventry University.

Her research interests focus on the creation of datasets and data acquisition systems to solve real-world challenges faced by industry, primarily for development of holistic digital twins - virtual models of complex assets (such as vehicles and manufacturing machines) across their entire lifecycle, from product design through to end of life.

How data is strategically managed, monitored, and assured (verification and quality assessment) are fundamental topics in Lara's work, especially in the context of data acquired from heterogeneous sources across industrial engineering systems and measurement processes. 

Lara has a background in challenge-led research and was previously an Industry Collaboration Fellow in the UKAS-accredited Acoustics Laboratories at the University of Salford. Here she designed and conducted research for commercial clients, and made a substantial contribution to the calibration team's successful application to become the UK’s first designated measurement institute in a decade – the National Institute for Airborne Acoustic Metrology.

Before returning to academia, she worked as an engineer in the automotive and industrial safety sectors. Her roles spanned a wide range of responsibilities across commercial R&D and product delivery, contributing to products at every stage from conception through to production. She worked closely with suppliers and manufacturing teams, developing a particular interest in the quality impacts of process measurement and control.