Professor Nigel Wright BSc, PhD, CEng, FHEA, FICE

Professor Nigel Wright

Department of Civil Engineering
Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering

Contact details

Address
School of Engineering
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Nigel Wright has been Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering at the University since 2022.

From initial research on the use of computers to predict the movement of fluids in the natural and built environment, Nigel’s research has expended into the cross-disciplinary aspects of flood risk management and climate change adaptation.  This has led to funding from the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council amongst others.

Nigel has published over 120 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.  He has received a number of journal awards with his co-authors including being highly commended in the Journal of Flood Risk Management Best Paper Award in 2021; the 16th Harold Jan Schoemaker Award for the most outstanding paper in the Journal of Hydraulic Research in the period 2007-8; and the John F Alcock Memorial Prize by the Railway Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Nigel's work has had a strong international focus. In addition to time spent working in the US and the Netherlands, he has worked on collaborative projects in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Argentina, China and India. He has been a Visiting Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and Fellow of the HEA.

Qualifications

  • Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers
  • Chartered Engineer
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • PhD in Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, 1988
  • BSc in Mathematics, University of Bristol, 1984

Biography

Nigel has worked at a number of universities including the universities of Nottingham, Delft and Leeds.  More recently he has had senior leadership roles at De Montfort University and Nottingham Trent University.

He complements his role at Birmingham with work in a small business providing specialist consultancy services in flood risk management.

Postgraduate supervision

Nigel currently supervises students in urban flood resilience and urban wind power generation.  He is keen to supervise students in any of the areas listed under “research interests”.

Research

Research interests

  • Flood resilience
  • Urban flood risk
  • Inter-disciplinary approaches to flood risk
  • Nature-based approaches to flooding
  • Computational modelling for hydrodynamics and morphodynamics in one, two and three dimensions.
  • Renewable energy generation
  • Natural ventilation
  • Wind effects on building and the built environment

Other activities

Nigel is a Senior Editor for the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews on Water and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Hydroinformatics and the Journal of Mountain Science.

Publications

A full list of publications can be found on Scopus.

View all publications in research portal