Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering,
Monash University
1945 –2025

Robert John (Bob) Keller was born in 1945 in New Zealand. He received a Bachelor of Civil Engineering with Honours from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in 1968, and a PhD in Civil Engineering from the same university in 1972. 

Bob Keller’s career as a Hydraulics Engineer spanned over more than 50 years. In this time, he made substantial contributions to hydraulic research and its practical applications in many fields, as a successful consultant, an inspiring teacher. His life-long interest in and passion for physical hydraulic modelling started in New Zealand, where he was the Head of the Hydraulics Laboratory of the Ministry of Works and Development from 1974 to 1979. During this period, he undertook many physical model studies of dams, spillway structures, and river control structures associated with power development projects. In 1979 Bob moved across the Tasman to take up an academic position at Monash University, where he quickly became respected as the hydraulics expert in the Department of Civil Engineering. His passion for physical modelling led him to establish the Hydraulics Laboratory of the Department of Civil Engineering (which is now named in his honour). This well designed and equipped laboratory allowed a broad range of physical modelling studies and advanced hydraulic engineering research to be undertaken. The physical modelling studies undertaken under Bob’s leadership ranged from the development of new flow measurement technology over the design and analysis of elements of water supply and sewerage works to the investigation of various environmental river engineering questions. Bob’s work on physical modelling studies has been complemented by numerical modelling of many facets of river engineering. In the last twenty years, Bob also worked on the transient analyses of large water supply and pressure sewerage networks. 

Dr Keller was a long-term member of IAHR, and a Member of Engineers Australia, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Institution of Professional Engineers, New Zealand.

Dr Keller has received several honours and awards for his work including:  

1. The 1982 Furkert Award of the Institution of Professional Engineers, New Zealand (for the best paper on water engineering during the preceding five years). 

2. Von Humboldt Fellowships in 1982-83 and 1987-88 for advanced study at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany 

3. The 1993 Harold Jan Schoemaker Award of the International Association for Hydraulic Research (for the best paper in the International Journal of Hydraulic Research during the preceding two years) 

4. 2016 Henderson Oration (Engineers Australia) with the title “Is Open Channel Flow Worth the Effort?”

Bob Keller was a distinguished hydraulician with outstanding contributions in open channel hydraulics and its physical modelling inclusive of hydraulic structures (fishway designs, pool-riffle evolution, cut-throat weirs), fundamental processes (such as aerated flows, diffusion through polymers). His publications of around 120 scientific papers include papers that cover the spectrum of hydro-environmental engineering from its science to its practice. He was an important contributor to the 2019 version of ‘Australian Rainfall and Runoff’ and particularly to those aspects dealing with flood hydraulics.

Dr Keller contributed to improved design of hundreds of major engineering structures in New Zealand, Australia, and South-East Asia. He has also presented short courses on hydraulic engineering in Australia and South-East Asia.

Bob Keller died on 9 March 2025 of an aggressive form of bone cancer.

Contributors

Ian Rutherfurd, University of Melbourne
P Erwin Weinmann, Monash University
James E Ball, University of Technology Sydney 
Monique Retallick, WMA Water 

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