John Dora is our Technical Lead. As well as his expertise in infrastructure and adaptation, John is a Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey and an accomplished lecturer, teaching at the Universities of Birmingham and Surrey. He has thirty-nine years’ experience in managing infrastructure, including flood risk management and asset management of railway structures.
John is the global lead for adaptation for the International Standards Organisations (ISO) and was the Convener (Chair) for the group that drafted ISO 14090 – the first international standard dedicated to adaptation to climate change. As a prominent international expert on climate change adaptation, his clients have included the World Bank, the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and CEN/CENELEC, the European Standards’ organisations.
John is frequently invited to advise upon and participate in events on infrastructure resilience matters, for example in running a rail climate resilience workshop for the World Bank in Delhi in 2018, running the London workshops, and assisting the Beijing workshops on rail adaptation for the International Union of Railways (UIC) in April and June 2017.
John frequently chairs discussion sessions, such as at the 2018 COP24 (the annual UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties), the Flood and Coast Conference in Telford and for the Construction Industry Research and Information Association’s (CIRIA) Infrastructure Resilience series. At December 2019's COP 25 in Madrid, John presented on ISO Standards, and acted as Adaptation Advisor to UIC's Secretary General M. François Davenne. He has also been the Chair of the UK’s Infrastructure Operators’ Adaptation Forum since its inception in 2012.