Speakers

Paul Bates is Professor of Hydrology at the University of Bristol where he specialises in the science of flooding and also co-founder and Chairman of the flood risk analytics company Fathom (www.fathom.global) . He develops new numerical solutions to the Shallow Water equations and combines these with satellite and airborne data to advance our fundamental understanding of flood dynamics and reduce threats to life and economic losses worldwide. He has published over 300 scientific papers in International journals and his work is used by multiple researchers, NGOs, multi-national companies and insurers to manage flood hazard and risk.

Previously, he was Director of the Cabot Institute and Head of the School of Geographical Sciences at Bristol and has spent sabbatical periods at Laboratoire National d’Hydraulique et Environnment in Paris, the EU Joint Research Centre, Princeton University and the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab at CALTECH.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and of the American Geophysical Union, an International Member of the US National Academy of Engineering and in 2019 was made a Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to flood risk management. He is a double winner of the Lloyd's of London Science of Risk prize, and a recipient of both the John Dalton medal of the European Geosciences Union and the Ven Te Chow award from the American Society of Civil Engineers.