About Guest Speaker

Dr. Richard Taylor is a Professor of Hydrogeology at University College London (UCL), UK and an adjunct Professor of Hydrogeology at Makerere University, Uganda. He trained initially as a chemist and then as a hydrogeologist in Canada gaining B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Queen’s University and the University of Toronto. For nearly three decades, he has worked collaboratively with research institutions and governments in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to: 1) characterise and quantify the response of groundwater systems to climate, land-use change and human development; and 2) enhance the role of groundwater in improving access to safe water and food security. He currently leads  two pan-African research consortia: GroFutures and AfriWatSan funded by UK Research Councils, The Royal Society, and UK Department for International Development. He also co-chairs The Chronicles Consortium which is collating and analysing multi-decadal records of groundwater levels in order to assess the impacts of climate, land-use and abstraction on groundwater storage across Africa.

Richard is a Principle Investigator on a research project called GROFUTURES: Groundwater Futures in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project is in collaboration with Sokoine University of Agriculture through Prof. Japhet Kashaigili, along with several other African and UK institutions.