Mike Carter is a civil and geotechnical engineer whose experience ranges from the practical, including site-based supervision of construction work, to the analytical, including the preparation of geotechnical design manuals and computer-based methods for consulting engineers. He has worked both in the UK and overseas; for consulting engineers, a contractor, a specialist site investigation contractor and as a university lecturer. In terms of engineering complexity, projects he has worked on have varied from the basic, such rural roads in East Africa and India, to the large and complex, such as the construction of an artificial island for Macau International Airport. He has also been involved in the analysis and rectification of numerous earthworks failures and has worked as a lecturer and trainer in the UK, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. He is the author of three books on geotechnical engineering. Dr Bentley is an Engineering Geologist. During his long academic career at Cardiff University he has acted as a consultant to many large UK companies including the Department of the Environment (UK). He has also been retained as a consultant to the Departments of Public Works in Brunei and Saudi Arabia. He has supervised 12 PhD and over 60 MSc students; most of the PhD research topics were collaborative with industry. He has published 110 technical papers. Highlights of his research work include the first edition of the textbook 'Correlation of Soil Properties' which was adopted by many consultancy firms as a standard reference book. Also the visualisation software, 'STRATA', which was successfully commercialised and sold into over 100 companies in 12 countries worldwide.