SCI’s Environment medal presentation and lecture – Paul Nathanail: Reflections on Eastbourne 1979: Firm foundations for future land contamination risk management

Paul Nathanail specialised in Earth Sciences at Cambridge and then studied Engineering Geology at Imperial College. In between he spent a formative year working for the Cyprus Geological Survey Department. Seven years at Wimpey Laboratories gave him an excellent grounding in contracting and how in-house consultants, innovation and creativity can contribute to profits. Wimpey supported him through a part time PhD in quantitative methods at Imperial. Four years at Nottingham Trent’s Centre for Research into the Built Environment (CRBE) were followed by 19 years running his own research group and directing a unique MSc at the University of Nottingham – alongside running Land Quality Management Ltd; the company he set up in 1997 with the late Colin Ferguson. Today, among other things, Paul splits his time between running LQM, serving on the Brownfield Land Forum, the SILC Professional and Technical Panel, the Geological Society Contaminated Land Specialist Group committee, BSI’s committee EH4 on Soil Quality and moderating the contaminated-land-management-strategies email forum. He has previously been awarded the Herbert Lapworth Medal (1987, Imperial College) and Glossop Medal (2009, Engineering Group, Geological Society) and was appointed a CRC CARE Fellow in 2017. He is delighted to have been invited to deliver this commemorative lecture and honoured to have been awarded the SCI Environment Medal.