Bob Cechet

Environmental Geoscience Division, Geoscience Australia

Robert (Bob) Cechet received a Bachelor of Science Degree (Distinction) from Monash University and a Diploma of Meteorology from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Training School.  He subsequently spent seven years with the Bureau of Meteorology gaining experience in weather forecasting and meteorological instrumentation.

He joined CSIRO Atmospheric Research in the late 1980’s to work on the calibration and validation of satellite data utilising meteorological and radiation instrumentation.  There he became interested in the validation of both weather and climate models utilising his skills in meteorology and instrumentation, and he went on to be an active contributor to the Australian Greenhouse Science Program focusing on the impacts in the Australia region from extreme events. Highlights included winning the Environment Award from the Planning Institute of Australia (National Conference, 2003) and the ShermanEureka prize for Environmental Research from the Australian Museum Trust (2003).

Bob joined Geoscience Australia in 2004 to focus on natural hazards (extreme events). He led the climate change and infrastructure impact work undertaken for the Garnaut review as well as the post-event impact analysis undertaken on Cyclone Larry and also the 2009 Victorian fires (in collaboration with CSIRO).

Recently Bob has been the lead researcher and author of two national studies for the Federal Department of Climate Change focusing on climate change and coastal vulnerability and also wind risk to infrastructure and the implications of climate change on the residential building stock.