BIOGRAPHY

Born in England and a Canadian Citizen through my father who was from Little Catalina, Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland. Grew up in London going to the Quintin School in St Johns Wood. My father kept the Railway Hotel in Wealdstone- famed for numerous rock groups appearing there including the Who, Jethro Tull, Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, Ten Years After and numerous others - not the least Screamin Lord Sutch. (The Railway Hotel sadly now burned down is said to be the place where The Who (then the High Notes) first broke their guitars on stage). Graduated from Exeter University in the UK with a BSc Geology Honours and went on to do an MSc. in Engineering Geology and Geotechnics at Leeds University (with Dr. Alistair Lumsden). At this time I developed a lifelong interest in slope stability, my M.Sc. dissertation being on a comparison of quickclays in Eastern Canada and Scandinavia (supervised by Dr. Ian Smalley) . After finishing the M.Sc. I spent 2 years in Zambia on the Copperbelt with Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines in Chingola where I was a Geotechnical Engineer working on open pit slope design. I then moved back to the UK to work with the Midland Road Construction Unit on site investigation projects for motorways and from there to Hong Kong as an Engineering Geologist with an engineering consultancy, Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick and Partners. In 1981 I decided to go back to University to do my doctoral thesis. This was on slope stability in UK surface coal mines in the Mining Engineering Department of Nottingham University (Supervised by Dr. Malcom Scoble).

My first academic position was as a Lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea, (PNG) in Port Moresby. Teaching experience here included engineering geology, hydrogeology, structural geology and photogeology. My research concentrated on slope stability in the Highlands of PNG. From PNG I moved to Canada in 1986 where I took up a position as an Assistant Professor in Geological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. During the next 10 years I was promoted to full Professor and also became an Associate in the Civil Engineering programme. Teaching duties were varied but concentrated on rock mechanics, rock mechanics design, engineering geology and structural geology. My research included numerical modelling of landslides, (Frank Slide, Alberta), surface mine slopes, and underground mine openings. I also specialized in the application of laboratory and in- situ acoustic techniques to rock engineering including acoustic emission, acoustic velocity and borehole acoustic logging.

In 1997 I moved back to the UK for three and a half years to take up the Chair of Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Exeter, Camborne School of Mines. in Cornwall. As leader of the Geomechanics Research Group I was involved in research applying the principles of rock mechanics and engineering geology to landslides, surface mining, quarrying and underground mining. Principal research areas included numerical modelling, acoustic emission and risk assessment.

In September 2000 I was appointed to the FRBC Chair of Terrain Analysis and Forestry Geotechnics in the Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University. In 2005, this chair was renamed "Resource Geoscience and Geotechnics". I am also currently a Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of Exeter.Current research includes surface and underground rock engineering, engineering geology of natural hazards, remote sensing, acoustic emission and forestry geotechnics.

From 2002-4 I was President of the Canadian Geoscience Council, a Member of the Geological Survey of Canada Advisory Board, the Ministers National Advisory Board on Earth Sciences and the Canadian Geological Foundation. I was Associate Editor of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal (2006-9) and am currenlty on the Editorial Board of Engineering Geology, the International Journal of Surface Mining and an advisory member of the Geological Society of London Special Publications Editorial Board. From 2009-2011, I was Vice President Technical of the Canadian Geotechnical Society

I was Co-chair (with Erik Eberhardt, UBC) of the 1st Canada-US Rock Mechanics Symposium held in Vancouver in May 2007 and Co-Chair of Slope Stability 2011 Slope Stability 2011 in Vancouver in September 2011.

Recipient of the Canadian Geotechnical Society Thomas Roy Engineering Geology Award in 2008 and the John A. Franklin Rock Mechanics Award in 2009, Runner up for the Victor Milligan Paper award in 2007 and co-author of the 2010 winning Victor Milligan Paper. Awarded an Erasmus European Research Scholarship for 2009-10. Chartered Engineeer (UK), and P. Eng (APEGBC). Elected Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, FEIC. (Dec 2011)

Currently Member of IAEG Commission C22: Landscape evolution and engineering geology, International Association of Engineering Geology