Dr John Harrison is a Chartered Civil Engineer, and holds both Masters and Doctoral degrees in Engineering Rock Mechanics. After graduating in Civil Engineering in 1979, he spent seven years in the civil engineering industry, both in the UK and overseas, working for both contractors and consulting engineers. He is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the British Geotechnical Association, the British Tunnelling Society and the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM). In addition to being a member of the ISRM, he is the UK's National Group representative on the ISRM Council and through this sits on the executive committee of the British Geotechnical Association.
His main research interests are in the mechanics and geometry of fractured rock masses and, together with tunnelling in rock, these are fields in which he also acts as a consultant to civil and mining engineering companies. Over the course of the past 5 years he has been actively developing the local degradation model for progressive failure of rock, and is now exploring the application of rock mechanics principles to the conservation of stone sculpture. This work is partly funded by the prestigious Henry Moore Foundation, and involves a study of Moore's iconic sculpture 'Arch'.
In September 2001 he took part in the first ISRM Lecture Tour, which visited the universities of Beijing, Xuzhou and Chongqing in China. In March 2002 he was the international keynote speaker at "Bergmekanikdag 2002", the annual showcase of Swedish Rock Engineering Research held in Stockholm. He regularly lectures on the Masters degree in Mining Geomechanics at the Western Australia School of Mines in Kalgoorlie, and has given a lecture course on rock mass geometry to Doctoral students in rock mechanics at Kungl Tekniska Högskolan, Stockholm.
He is the co-author, together with Professor John Hudson, of the two textbooks "Engineering Rock Mechanics: an introduction to the principles" and "Engineering Rock Mechanics: illustrative worked examples".
- Senior Lecturer in Rock Mechanics, Imperial College 1995-date
- Lecturer in Rock Mechanics, Imperial College 1986-1995
- Geotechnical Engineer, Sir William Halcrow & Partners 1985-1986
- MSc Rock Mechanics, Imperial College 1984-1985
- Design Engineer, Kier International 1981-1984
- Site Engineer, French Kier Construction 1979-1981
- BSc (Eng) Civil Engineering, Imperial College 1979
Recent Measures of Esteem
- 2007 appointed Adjunct Professor of Rock Mechanics at the Western Australian School of Mines
- 2007 Chair International Society of Rock Mechanics Working Group for the Suggested Method on Discontinuities in Rock
- 2005 Keynote lecture Conference of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics
