Professor Carolyn Roberts is a water resource management specialist with many years of experience of research and consultancy work in the UK and overseas, mainly in relation to the impact of developments such as housing, mining, waste disposal and industry on water quantity and quality. She has published widely on aspects of water management, flooding and drought, and was the Technical Advisor to Gloucestershire County Council following the serious Severn flooding of summer 2007. She has also undertaken many specialist investigations for the police, looking at the transport of human bodies in river and canal networks, particularly in connection with murders.
Carolyn spent eight years as Head of the large School of Environment at the University of Gloucestershire, developing an interest in innovation in Higher Education teaching and learning, and eventually directing the Centre for Active Learning, one of the UK’s national Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. She moved to the University of Oxford to direct the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network, a government agency in the Innovate UK ‘family’ that linked businesses to universities to catalyse innovation in environmental technologies. Whilst at Oxford she also directed a Natural Environment Research Council-funded project, Project FOSTER, which concerned good practice in communications between environmental scientists and Local Authorities. She has also worked at the Universities of Exeter and Keele.
Carolyn is currently the Class Representative, leading a major legal case against six English Water companies, alleging serious pollution of rivers and canals through spilling raw sewage, and overcharging of customers.
As well as being a Fellow of IES and a Chartered Environmentalist, she is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management, and the Royal Geographical Society. Carolyn sees the IES as a key player amongst the UK’s learned societies and professional bodies, and served on Council from 1991 - 2017, acting as Chair from 2006-2009. She was elected as a Vice President on retirement from the Chair. Prior to that she was Chair of its Education Committee for several years. In 2012 she was elected Chair of Society for the Environment, a position she held until 2014. She is currently the Thames Warden of the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators, one of London’s modern Livery Companies. She continues as Professor Emeritus of Environment and Fellow of Gresham College in London, an institution established in 1597 as the social media of its time, providing lectures to the public in English.
