Douglas Stead has over thirty years experience in rock and soil slope stability in industry, government and academia in the UK, Zambia, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and Canada. He is now Professor and Chair in Resource Geoscience and Geotechnics at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. He has published extensively in the areas of rock mechanics and engineering geology with application to landslides, surface and underground mining. Dr Stead has a strong commitment to continuing development courses for professional engineers and geoscientists – delivering courses on the methods of data collection and numerical modeling of rock slopes. He is a Professional Engineer in British Columbia and a Chartered Engineer in the UK, and is currently a member of the Engineering Geology editorial board and an Associate Editor of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal. He is a recipient of the Canadian Geotechnical Society Thomas Roy Award for Engineering Geology (2008) and the John Franklin Award for Rock Mechanics (2009).