Dr Heidi Burgess - managing flood risk

Principal Lecturer in the School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering, Dr Heidi Burgess, a Chartered Civil Engineer, brings together different disciplines to reduce flood risk as climate changes is causing more people to be at risk from flood events.

After leaving school with a BTEC in business and finance Heidi qualified as a fingerprint expert but realised that her career was not going in the right direction. She went to night school, gained her A-level in mathematics and as a mature female student went on to study civil engineering both in the UK and France.

Dr Heidi Burgess

As a Chartered Civil Engineer, the focus of Heidi’s work is around flood management particularly the softer eco-based solutions. Her detailed research work on the largest open coast managed realignment site in Europe, Medmerry Nature Reserve, is providing industry and government agencies with a detailed insight into how working with the processes of nature can help reduce flooding.

Her work in collaboration with the Rivers Trust is helping to design more sustainable riverine flood management options; she is in the process of producing design guidelines for wood debris jams, which are used in upland watercourses to slow flood waters.

Inspiring others

Having worked in industry before coming back into academia after the birth of her first child, Heidi feels passionately that industry and academia need to work together to find more sustainable solutions to flood management. As an active member of the Institute of Civil Engineers Coastal Management Conference Committee, she is working to achieve this collaboration.

Heidi achieves all of this whilst choosing to work part-time so that she can spend as much time as possible raising her children. In the male-dominated industry of civil engineering, she likes to demonstrate that gender and balancing family and professional commitments should not be thought of as barriers to achieving your goals.