Project Manager with more than 8 years of experience in the education sector as a secondary school teacher, more than 2 years of experience in the business development sector as a business manager in development banking and more than 10 years in the field of environment, climate change and disaster risks management and resilience building working with donors, development partners and stakeholders. I have over 10 years experience in project management working in 15 countries in the Pacific region. These experiences includes capacity building, business developments, disaster risk management/reduction and climate change adaptation, mitigation and finance, climate science information, biodiversity and land degradation.
I have represented Nauru, Fiji and SPREP at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) and familiar with the UNFCCC processes and procedures in coordination, monitoring and reporting to the UNFCCC secretariat. In addition, I was the development of the Third National Communication Coordinator for Fiji and experience with building capacity by mainstreaming multilateral environment agreement (UNFCCC, UNCBD and UNCCD) into inter-ministerial structures and mechanisms across Fiji Government and non-government organizations.
James Lewis, Director of Intercoastal Consulting, is a certified practicing civil engineer with over 15 years of experience specialising in coastal engineering throughout Australasia and across the Pacific. He has a broad knowledge of coastal protection design, integrated coastal management and surf amenity. James’s skills extend outside the office where he has led large-scale metocean deployments, analysing the data captured in the field to calibrate numerical models used to inform coastal design.
He has focussed the last 10 years of his career on working in Small Island Developing States (SIDs) in climate change adaptation, concerned primarily with developing climate-resilient coastal protection. James aspires to see the design phase through to implementation; having supported procurement, and contracting and undertaken construction supervision on large projects in remote locations. He aims to provide value and support through the complete project lifecycle including the social, financial and institutional aspects of these projects, endeavoring to understand the administrative, governmental and funding mechanisms specific to each country and community and their relation to the delivery of a successful project.
Using his knowledge of coastal engineering, the ocean and the environment, James’ primary endeavor is to assist coastal communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Education
2009 – 2013: PhD, UWA, School of Environmental Systems Engineering (SESE). Hydrodynamics and Sand Transport on Perched Beaches in Western Australia.
• Analysis of the variability and longer term changes of the wave climate in the southern Indian Ocean.
• Assessment of the dissipation of extreme wave events on the continental shelf.
• Development of a GPU based morphodynamics model (XBeach_GPU)
• Assessment of the role of the variability in rock topography on the dynamics of perched beaches.
• Modelling the sand transport on a submerged seawall using SPH hydrodynamics.
2004 - 2006: MSc (Integrated Approach to Geological Hazards), University of Sciences and Technology, Montpellier (France) – Grade A-.
• Development of methodology to map inundation from storm surge.
• Mapping tsunami hazards for 8 locations in the Mentawai archipelago using numerical models.
2003 - 2004: License’s Degree, Earth Sciences, University of Sciences and Technology, Montpellier (France).
2001 - 2003: D
