Jose Beya

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Principal Coastal Engineer

Hawke's Bay Regional Council

Bio: I migrated back to New Zealand in 2018 to work as a Principal Engineer for the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council. My main function at the council is to look after coastal projects (most of them related to the coastal strategy) and river morphology/gravel management studies. Prior to this, I was an Associate Professor at the Ocean Engineering School – Universidad de Valparaiso in my home country, Chile. There I lectured wave mechanics, maritime hydraulics and design of maritime structures, guided undergraduate thesis, directed and participated in R&D projects related to wave climate, and energy and carried out several consultancy projects involving a wide range of coastal engineering issues. I have a Masters in Engineering (by research, waves and turbulence interaction) from UNSW Australia and my career in coastal engineering was strongly shaped from my initial steps in the Chilean Hydraulics Laboratory from back in 2001, where I carried out coastal engineering studies involving field work, physical and numerical modelling. During my first time in New Zealand (2003 - 2005), I worked as a Research Engineer in lake hydrodynamics and water quality at the CBER, University of Waikato, and then, as a Technical Rivers Engineer at the Waikato Regional Council, mostly undertaking flood modelling.