DPhil, CPEng 

Principal Engineer

Nick is an engineer, scientist, and humanitarian with several decades of international experience spanning academia, industry, government, and humanitarian endeavour. He is known for his ability to communicate complex technical issues with clarity to diverse stakeholders across university, industry, government policy and community-based initiatives.

Nick has lectured in many universities around the world including the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, in areas spanning mathematics, statistics, and engineering. His research and engineering expertise include groundwater and hydraulics, military and civil field engineering, computational engineering, and geophysics. Most recently he was Director of Humanitarian Engineering at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where he developed a world-first, field-based programme focused on emergency engineering in a New Zealand and Pacific Island context. 

His previous roles include City of London risk analyst, Lloyd’s of London insurance market assessment, and modelling of catastrophic risks and disaster risk reduction. He has also worked as a consulting engineer and served as director of a non-profit organisation addressing climate change impacts on water scarcity, visit sge-pacific.org 

Nick’s research is at the forefront of developing scientific methods for high-resolution groundwater mapping. He has contributed to humanitarian engineering initiatives in international contexts, including groundwater exploration in the Pacific, ice stupas in the Himalayas, and emergency water supply following natural disasters.  

He closely follows the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is committed to using his technical expertise in support of planning, resilience, and capacity building for communities facing climate-driven uncertainty. 

Nick is a column editor for the Harvard Data Science Review, visit hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu