IAHR Presidents
Below is the list of IAHR Presidents since the association was founded in 1935:
Since 2023:
France
Prof. Philippe is professor of Hydroinformatics at Polytech Nice Sophia, the graduate school of engineering of Université Côte d’Azur, France, since 1997. He graduated from Louis Pasteur University, Strasbourg (France) in 1993 and started his career as hydraulic engineer in a French consulting company and was involved in projects in Europe, Africa and Asia. Read more
2019-2023:
Hong Kong, China
Prof. Lee grew up and attended high school in Hong Kong. In 1969 he went to USA on a scholarship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he obtained his BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Civil Engineering (1969-1977). For his postgraduate studies he conducted research in environmental hydromechanics under the supervision of Professor Donald R. F. Harleman and Professor Gerhard H. Jirka. Read more
2015-2019:
USA
Dr. Peter Goodwin is professor and president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He is an internationally recognized expert in ecosystem restoration, ecohydraulics, and enhancement of river, wetland and estuarine systems, and he has spent 30 years in higher education. Read more
2011-2015:
UK
Prof. Roger is Emeritus Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering at Cardiff University; Chair Professor at Hohai University, China; and an Independent Water Consultant. He graduated from Imperial College with a PhD in 1976, followed by posts at the universities of Birmingham (Lecturer, 1977-86), Bradford (Professor 1987-97), and Cardiff (Professor 1997-18). Read more
2007-2011:
Japan
Prof. Nobuyuki Tamai, Emeritus Professor at Tokio University and Past President of IAHR.
2003-2007:
Canada
Etienne Mansard was born on October 9, 1946 in Karaikal, India, one of the old South-Indian French territories. He obtained his civil engineering degree from the University of Annamalai and his MTech in hydraulics from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras. Three years later he moved to the Grenoble University in France where he acquired his PhD thesis in 1976. Read more
1999-2003:
USA
Forrest Merton Holly Jr., distinguished hydraulician, leader in civil engineering, and stimulating companion, passed away on Monday, May 22, 2017. His professional life was filled with significant advances in computational hydraulics, understated leadership, and many interests that he pursued energetically. He gained the esteem, gratitude, and affection of the many people with whom he came in contact. Read more
1995-1999:
Germany
Helmut Kobus was born on May 17, 1937, in Stuttgart, Germany. After graduation as a civil engineer from the Technical University in Stuttgart in 1961, he moved for four years to the Institute of Hydraulic Research of the State University of Iowa, USA to submit in 1965 his PhD thesis. Read more
1990-1995:
Norway
Torkild Carstens (1931-2014) IAHR President Emeritus and Honorary Member, was born in Vadsø in northern Norway on the 14th of March 1931. He passed away in Oslo on the 30th of June 2014 after a stroke. Torkild received a siv. ing. degree in 1954 from the Norwegian Institute of Technology (now the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim). Read more
1987-1990:
Australia
John (Jack) Dempster Lawson was born on June 10, 1926 in Perth, Australia, and passed away on October 28, 1991 in Melbourne. He was educated as a civil engineer at the University of Western Australia in Perth from 1944 to 1949 and received a PhD title from the University of Aberdeen, UK in 1951. Read more
1983-1987:
Germany
Erich J. Plate was born on July 14, 1929 in Hamburg, Germany. He graduated from Stuttgart Technical University as a civil engineer in 1954 and there submitted his PhD thesis in 1964. From 1954 to 1957 he was a Fulbright Student at Colorado State University CSU, returned then for two years to Stuttgart University to accept in 1959 a CSU faculty position. Read more
1980-1983:
USA
John Fisher Kennedy was born on December 17, 1933 in Farmington NM and passed away on December 13, 1991 in Iowa City IA. He graduated from Notre Dame University in 1955 and received his MS and PhD degrees in 1956 and 1960, respectively, from Caltech. He joined the MIT faculty in 1961 and in 1966 succeeded Hunter Rouse (1906-1996) as director of Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research. Read more
1975-1979:
France
Michel Hug was born on May 30, 1930 in Courson, France, graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, and received in 1956 a doctorate in hydraulics and fluid mechanics at the State University of Iowa, USA. He then joined the national electricity board EDF where he was engaged for the following decade with various questions in hydraulics at the EDF research center in Chatou. Read more
1972-1975:
Japan
Taizo Hayashi was born on June 28, 1920 in Nagoya, Japan, and passed away as a result of cerebral infraction on February 9, 1998 in Tokyo. After graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1942 he was there as a Lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering and received his PhD title in 1953. In 1950, he joined the Chuo University in Tokyo which had been newly founded after World War II. Read more
1965-1971:
USA
James Wallace Daily was born on March 19, 1913 in Columbia MO, and passed away on December 27, 1991. He was educated at Stanford University and received his MS in mechanical engineering at Caltech, Pasadena, in 1937, and a doctorate in aeronautics in 1945. Read more
1963-1965:
France
Léopold Escande was born on June 1, 1902 in Toulouse France and passed away there on September 13, 1980. He graduated as a mechanical and an electro-technical engineer from the University of Toulouse and there submitted a PhD thesis in 1929. Read more
1960-1963:
UK
Arthur Thomas Ippen was born on July 28, 1907 in London UK, and passed away on April 5, 1974 in Belmont MA. He graduated from Aachen Technical University as a civil engineer and received from Caltech the MS in 1935 and the PhD degree in 1936. He was from 1938 to 1945 an assistant professor of hydraulics at Lehigh University, and from 1948 professor of hydraulics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT. Read more
1955-1960:
France
Pierre Danel was born on October 19, 1902 in Roubaix, France, and passed away on September 13, 1966 in Grenoble, France. He graduated from Ecole Centrale in Paris and entered the hydraulic laboratories Neyret-Beylier and Piccard-Pictet in Grenoble in 1928, the cradle of the later SOGREAH laboratories. Read more
1948-1955:
USA
Lorenz G. Straub was born on June 7, 1901 in Kansas City, and passed away in his office on October 27, 1963. He was educated at the University of Illinois where he gained his PhD title in 1930. He stayed during the late 1920s as a Freeman Scholar at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Berlin and thus got acquainted with European hydraulics. Read more
1935-1948:
Wolmar Knut Axel Fellenius was born on September 10 in Viksberg, Sweden, and passed away on September 2, 1957 in Stockholm. He graduated as a civil engineer from the Stockholm Technical University in 1898 and then was a building inspector and chief of the Gothenburg harbor department until 1911. Read more
Related
IAHR also has a special issue of HydroLink in 2005 on "IAHR 70 Years - and Its Presidents" that has the introduction of IAHR President from 1935 through 2003. Click here to download this special issue (in PDF format).
