Jelena is a Professor in Digital Engineering at the Department of Engineering, Durham University, UK, since October 2025. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2015 in the field of computational modeling at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. In 2016, she received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (SATBIM) at the University of Nottingham, where she was later appointed Assistant Professor in Structural Engineering and Informatics in 2018. In 2022 she moved to University of Birmingham as Associate Professor in Digital Engineering .

Her research focuses on automated reconstruction, execution and update of digital twins for complex systems, combining advanced computational simulations with AI technologies to address resilience challenges in structural and geotechnical engineering. She  coordinated two HORIZON 2020 ITNs, No2Noise (EID ITN/765472) and OptiMacs (EID ITN/764650), and currently hosts three MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (TwinSSI: EP/Z001072/1, Meta-NOVIB: EP/Z001129/1, and M-Twin4US: 101205667).  

Professor Ninić serves as an associate editor for the Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology (TUST) and ICE Bridge Engineering journals. She is the UK representative and core member of the ISSMGE Technical Committee 222 on Geotechnical BIM and Digital Twins, and a General Council member of the IACM. From January 2025, Professor Ninić serves as President of UK Association for Computational Mechanics (UKACM). 

Education

Dept. of Civil Engineering, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany