Alan joined the University of Dundee as a Senior Lecturer in January 2018, having previously been an Assistant/Associate Professor in Civil Engineering at Heriot Watt University (2010-2017). Prior to this, he held a Postdoctoral Research Associate position at the University of Dundee (Civil Engineering) between 2001 and 2010 and was a graduate engineer in the Babtie Group (now Jacobs) between 1999 and 2001. He gained his BEng and PhD degrees in Civil Engineering at the University of Glasgow in 1995 and 2002, respectively.

His expertise includes the modelling of environmental fluid mechanics problems, cohesive and non-cohesive sediment transport dynamics, and geophysical flow processes. His research interests fall into three main areas:

1. Flow-sediment interactions at multiple scales
2. Stratified and buoyancy driven flows
3. Topographic and Earth rotation effects on ocean currents

This research has been supported by funding from the UK research councils, the European Union, The Royal Society and The Carnegie Trust. In 2010, he was awarded the Karl Emil Hilgard Hydraulic Prize (American Society of Civil Engineers) for his paper “Deposition from particle-laden, plane, turbulent buoyant jets” [Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 134(8), 1110-1122]. He has led and participated in a number of international research projects in Trondheim (2009), Grenoble (2014, 2018) and Hull (2016) under various EU Hydralab initiatives.

Alan is currently an elected member of the International Association of Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR Europe) Leadership Team and an Associate Member of the EPSRC Peer Review College. He is also an advisor on the academic panel of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.