Dr Ray Canterford PSM
Dr Ray Canterford, PSM, is currently a consultant to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Marine Services as an expert in hydrology, meteorology and ocean hazards, after retiring from full time employment.
He has also undertaken international projects for the World Bank.
His current work is focussed on support for early warning coastal inundation systems for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and coastal countries in West Africa.
Prior to this work he had 45 years with the Bureau of Meteorology and overseas appointments to the USA National Oceanic Administration (NOAA) and NASA for satellite remote sensing.
His final role prior to retirement was as Executive and Division Head in charge of national and international Hazard Services.
In the 2014 Queen’s Australia Day Honours, Dr Canterford was awarded an Australian Public Service Medal (PSM) for “outstanding public service in the delivery of improvements in forecasting and warning of natural hazards and weather, most notably for emergency and natural disaster response”.
He has personally briefed the highest levels of Federal and State governments on a range of natural disaster emergencies, including fires, floods, tsunami and volcanic ash hazards to aviation.
During the tragic 2004 Indian Ocean megathrust tsunami, Dr Canterford led the immediate Australian warning response and then travelled extensively as the Head of the Australian Government delegation to the affected Indian Ocean countries. This was to achieve agreement for international cooperation on building an effective Indian Ocean warning system. He was a major architect of the Australian and Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System, built cooperatively across the Australian Government.
In 2005 he was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Scientific Engineering and Innovation Committee (PMSEIC) Working Group on Tsunami. He remained the Australian focal point for tsunami warning systems in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean for the relevant United Nations bodies for the following decade.
Dr Canterford was awarded a Fulbright Postdoctoral award to undertake hydrological research in the USA NOAA in 1979-80. In 1991 he was a Visiting Scientist under the US NOAA Office of Climate and Global Change Program and the Office of Hydrology; and was the Australian National Representative to the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission from 2015 to 2018.
He was also an inaugural Board Member of the Australasian Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre from 2004 to 2014, which significantly advanced bushfire preparation for firefighters and the community.
At Monash University, he was in one of its first annual intakes in 1966 and completed his Bachelor of Science (Hons) with majors in Physics and Mathematics in 1970 and his Doctor of Philosophy in Physics in 1974.