Some
Personal
Background
Information
I
am an Australian by birth, educated in Sydney where I lived until 1971.
My tertiary education was completed in geography, economics and geology (School of
Geomorphology) at the University of Sydney where I obtained my Ph.D. in 1970.
My doctoral thesis reported a flume and field investigation of fluvial
processes operating in the sandbed river channels
draining the Hawkesbury Basin in eastern Australia.
After completing military service in Australia (6 years part-time in the Citizens Military Forces, CMF) I moved to Canada with my wife, Elaine, in 1971 to take up an appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University near Vancouver, British Columbia. At this time SFU was quite new, just six years young and growing rapidly. I taught undergraduate and graduate geomorphology and geology and began my research on B.C. rivers. Along the way I was promoted through the academic ranks to Associate and then to Full Professor in 1984. I served as Chairman of the Department of Geography from 1982 to 1986. From 1994 to 2005 I held a joint appointment as a Professor in the Departments of Earth Sciences and Geography at Simon Fraser University. I was Chair of the Department of Earth Sciences from 1999 to 2002. I resigned my faculty appointment in Earth Sciences to become Chair of the Department of Geography in September 2005, an administrative tour that I completed in August, 2008. I retired from SFU at the end of 2010.
I maintain a geoscience consulting practice and specialize in work relating to the protection of river channel environments, general river engineering, surface-water hydrology, and problems related to river channels as legal boundaries. In recent years I have been active in the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists as a member of the Geoscience Committee, a continuing appointment. My research career, however, is drawing to a close. I am now retired and no longer accepting graduate students. My colleague, Dr Jeremy Venditti, will continue the tradition of research and teaching in fluvial geomorphology and hydrology at SFU and students interested in pursuing graduate work in these areas should contact him directly.
Elaine
and I have two adult children, five grandchildren and two granddogs.
Our recreational pastimes include boating and walking in the summer and
eating
and drinking too much in the winter. Daughter Sharon is a ICU nurse at
Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, BC and her husband, Craig
Sobering, is a Park Planner with Metro Vancouver. Son Adrian is
Director of the Cordilleran Division of the BC Geological Survey and
his wife, Leanne Pyle, is a professional geological
consultant (VI Geoscience Services), both in Victoria, BC. Adrian is
also pursuing a career as a research scientist in Quaternary and
environmental geology and is publishing so don't confuse this
Hickin with the other!
My formal CV is available here.