Jonathan joined the University of Dundee as a Lecturer in 2006, following MEng and PhD degrees at the University of Cambridge, and was promoted to Professor of Civil Engineering in 2018.  His expertise includes centrifuge and 1-g physical modelling, Finite Element simulation and analytical modelling, with research interests in four areas associated with innovative design against extreme dynamic environmental actions:

1. Earthquake Engineering
2. Nature-based and other low-carbon approaches in Civil Engineering
3. Adaptation of infrastructure to Climate Change
4. Offshore Geotechnics, primarily anchoring and foundation systems for marine renewable energy

This research has been supported by funding from the UK Research Councils, the European Commission, and various overseas, charitable and industrial organisations to a total value of over £4.5M. He was awarded the British Geotechnical Association Medal in 2009, the TK Hsieh Award for Civil Engineering Dynamics from the ICE/IStructE in 2010 and the ISSMGE TC203 Young Researcher Award in Earthquake Engineering in 2018. In 2017 he gave the 13th Géotechnique Lecture on the use of vegetation in low carbon geotechnical engineering.

He was Chairman of the Editorial Panel of the International Journal of Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (2014-2018) and has previously served on the Géotechnique Advisory Panel (2011-2013). He has been an instructor on the Standard and Advanced courses in Computational Modelling in Geotechnics run annually in the UK by PLAXIS BV and is a UK National Representative on both Technical Committees TC104 (Physical Modelling) and TC203 (Earthquake Engineering) of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE).

He is also the principal author of Craig's Soil Mechanics, 8th and 9th Editions and co-author of Design of Piles in Liquefiable Soils.

Jonathan was Discipline Lead for Civil Engineering (2016-2021), having previously co-developed and led the University's MSc in Geotechnical Engineering for 6 years.