Elisabeth Tørstad, was elected to the ULRI Board of Trustees in 2020, and serves as chair of its Governance & Compensation Committee. Ms. Tørstad brings substantial scientific and technical knowledge to the Board.

Ms. Tørstad formerly served as chief executive officer of Asplan Viak AS, a professional services firm in the architecture, property development and public infrastructure sectors. Prior to this, Ms. Tørstad spent most of her career in the DNV Group, a global classification society, certification, standards development, and professional services organization. She held CEO positions for nine years with different DNV companies. She led complex and multinational companies through periods of significant market volatility in trade patterns, market legislation, and regulations. She also played a vital role in several high-level incident investigations, transforming industry learnings into new standards and regulations.

Ms. Tørstad is a member of the boards of directors of Aker Solutions ASA, the Henie Onstad Art Foundation, the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, and Torvald Klaveness. She also serves as the deputy chair of the governing board of the Peace Research Institutes Oslo.

Ms. Tørstad holds a Cand Scient degree in structural physics from the University of Oslo. She also holds degrees in civil engineering from Oslo Ingeniørhøyskole and in business administration from Norwegian School of Management). She has studied organizational psychology at the University of Bergen and attended business and leadership studies at IMD, INSEAD, and Berkeley Haas School of Business (UCal).