Professor Roger Falconer FREng, ForMemCAE, Emeritus Professor, School of Engineering, Cardiff University
Roger continues to collaborate closely with Cardiff University in his role as Emeritus Professor of Water Engineering, although he now resides in Ilkley, West Yorkshire.
Roger was born in West Wales, graduated as a civil engineer, and has since spent over 40 years in academia, working closely with practitioners and specialising in water and environmental engineering, and acquiring extensive research experience in developing and applying computational hydro-environmental models for environmental impact assessment (EIA) studies and engineering design.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. At Cardiff he founded the Hydro-environmental Research Centre and managed the Department of Civil Engineering at his previous university (Bradford). He was Chair of the Civil and Construction Engineering Sub-Panel for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF2014). He was President (2011-15) and appointed Honorary Member (2017) of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research.
He has received many awards for his research, has published extensively in the field of hydro-environmental modelling and has delivered over 50 keynote and 550 external lectures to a wide range of audiences in the UK and world-wide. He has worked extensively on providing specialist advice to industry and government agencies, on a wide range of water EIA projects, both in the UK and overseas. For example, he was Co-Chair of a Group of Experts in an international high profile court case (Malaysia v. Singapore, 2003) and in the follow up major EIA study. He has also interacted extensively with consulting engineering companies and regulatory agencies, through the provision of his hydro-environmental computer models for EIA studies.
He has also participated extensively in TV and Press interviews, on a wide range of topics, most notably: the Severn Barrage, tidal lagoons, flooding, and global water security.