Chris Rogers is Professor of Geotechnical Engineering and Director of the Centre for Infrastructure and Urban Systems in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Birmingham.

Following three years in the civil engineering industry, Chris held academic posts at the University of Nottingham and Loughborough University before being appointed to a personal chair at the University of Birmingham in 1998. 

His areas of expertise encompass buried infrastructure, utility service systems, urban underground space and engineering to support future sustainable, resilient and liveable cities. The outcomes of his research have been used to create a Theory of Change for Infrastructure and Cities, which embraces systems thinking and transdisciplinary working to guide systemic change to the fabric and operation of towns and cities, and the infrastructures that support them. 

Chris chaired the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Research, Development & Innovation Panel from 2011 to 2021, and from 2013-15 he served as the only engineer on an eight-strong Lead Expert Group of the UK Government Foresight Future of Cities project. A founder member of the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC), he led the development of the National Buried Infrastructure Facility, which opened on campus at the University of Birmingham in 2020. 

Chris has served as editor of the journal of Trenchless Technology Research, Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology, and Engineering Sustainability, and has published more than 170 journal papers and 200 conference papers, books and book chapters.