Engineering in conflict situations

The dangerous, but often essential, job of emergency engineering in war zones will be explored in a free public lecture at the University of Teesside.

‘Engineering in Conflict Situations’ will be presented by Julian Carter, a Teesside Civil Engineering graduate who has worked in Bosnia, Serbia, Algeria and Iraq. The talk will be held in the Main Lecture Theatre, Constantine Building, on Wednesday 6th October 2004, at 1-2pm. (Enter the University through the main multi-storey entrance, off King Edward Square).

Julian said: “I was always interested in emergency relief engineering as it provides real help where it’s often needed most. As well as the engineering challenges such as building refugee camps and supplying them with water, or training local people, you also have to deal with the fact that armed forces will be in your area of operation.

“My talk will be about the relationship between the military and aid agencies and the politics that affect it. I’ll also be looking at security issues and the differences between a conflict situation, where you can be perceived to be acting on ‘one side’ only, and a humanitarian or natural disaster, where there are no sides as such. Having worked with many aid agencies, and also with Rotary International, I’ve got a lot of experience of how they operate and the benefits they can bring to such appalling situations.

“I was in Iraq recently, which is a very different situation to any place I’ve been before. It is very political, with hundreds of different organisations and companies essentially competing for work. While I was there, I was involved on the humanitarian side of things.”

Julian is married to Catherine, an IT expert who is also a University of Teesside graduate. They have two children. When not directly involved in emergency relief engineering, Julian runs his own Civil Engineering Consultancy, called CERAD – Civil Engineering Relief and Development.

To attend the talk, please contact Dr Steve Bloomer on 01642 342414, fax 01642 342401 or email: s.t.bloomer@tees.ac.uk. The University of Teesside offers two specialist civil engineering courses for people interested in this type of work: the B.Eng (Hons) International Emergency Relief Engineering and B.Sc. (Hons) Disaster Management. To find out more, call 01642 342499 or visit the University’s website at www.tees.ac.uk

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