Speaker profile
Prof Russell Thomas
Russell obtained a degree in microbiology and biotechnology before, obtaining his PhD at the University of Birmingham on nuclear waste treatment.
Russell started his career in the research arm of British Gas developing technologies to improve the sustainability of remediating of former gasworks sites. He moved to the consultancy sector in 2001, where he has remained ever since. He is now a Technical Director for the International Engineering Consultancy WSP. Russell holds a visiting Professorship at the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Strathclyde and a visiting lectureship at the University of Manchester. Russell manages a variety of innovations projects in collaboration with these universities, which stretch from the remediation of Mercury to the research into environmental forensics.
Although Russell has worked across a wide range of areas, he is best known for his knowledge of the manufactured gas industry gained through over 20 years of working and studying gasworks sites, primarily with the aim of remediating the site for future use. He is a member of the Institute of Gas Engineers and Managers History Panel, Co-editor of Historic Gas Times and has written numerous papers on the subject and has been an invited speaker at conferences globally on this subject. He is currently writing a book for Historic England on the subject on the Manufactured Gas Industry to be used for heritage guidance.