Dr Rouzbeh Abbassi completed his PhD in environmental engineering at Memorial University of Newfoundland (St. John's, NL, Canada).  Upon completion, he was offered and undertook two Postdoctoral Fellowships; firstly at the Department of Process Engineering of Memorial University and secondly at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. Before joining Macquarie University, he was an environmental, safety and risk engineering lecturer and senior lecturer at the Australian Maritime College (AMC) of the University of Tasmania. He previously served as the Discipline Leader for the Civil Engineering Program and as the Director of Research at the School of Engineering. He is currently a Professor in the School of Engineering.