FLEXIS Principal Lead Investigator Professor Hywel Thomas elected as Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

A total of 25 foreign members from around the world were elected to CAS in 2021 with Professor Thomas the only one elected from civil engineering.

FLEXIS would like to congratulate our Lead Principal Investigator, Professor Hywel Thomas, CBE, FREng, FRS, on his election as Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

This is the highest honour to be bestowed by the Chinese government to a foreign scientist for contributions and achievements in science and technology and represents an outstanding personal achievement for Professor Thomas.

Professor Thomas said “I’m very honoured to be elected a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I’ve worked with many very talented Chinese co-workers over the years and have benefitted enormously from those interactions.”

The Chinese Academy of Science is the national academy for natural sciences of the People’s Republic of China and provides advisory and appraisal services on issues stemming from the national economy, social development and science and technology. A total of 25 foreign members from around the world were elected to CAS in 2021 with Professor Thomas the only one elected from civil engineering. Previously elected members were (late) Professors Olek Zienkiewicz and Roger Owen, also from Civil Engineering.

His areas of research include “Coupled Processes” which investigates the burial of nuclear waste and the complex behaviour of water, gas, heat and chemicals below ground; land regeneration; sustainability and geoenergy. Professor Thomas has also worked extensively with the UN agencies, UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organisation), UNESCO and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).

Professor Hywel Thomas is a distinguished research professor in Civil Engineering at Swansea University, in a part-time capacity. He is the founder Director of the Geoenvironmental Research Centre (GRC) at Cardiff and a UNESCO Professor in the Development of a Sustainable Geoenvironment.

In 2013, the Geoenvironmental Research Centre was awarded the Queens Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education, “In recognition of geoenvironmental solutions to major challenges of land, ground water quality and regeneration.”

His academic achievements have been recognised by election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2012, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2003, a Member of Academia Europaea, the Academy of Europe (MAE) in 2012 and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW) in 2011. He was made an Honorary Professor at Zhejiang University, China. He is currently the President of the Learned Society of Wales (LSW).

He was the Director of the School of Engineering at Cardiff University for 8 years from 2002 to 2010. He was subsequently a Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University for a further 8-year period from 2010 to 2018. In 2017 he received a CBE in the New Year’s Honours List for “Services to Academic Research and Higher Education”.

He is now Editor-In-Chief for Computers and Geotechnics, a Q1 Elsevier flagship journal in computational geomechanics and last year became the President of the Learned Society of Wales (LSW).