Dr. Townsend is a registered Professional Engineer with the Province of Ontario, who has over 30 years of professional experience in the areas of Hydrotechnical and Water Resources Engineering. He has acted as consultant on various projects dealing with urban drainage and the physical and mathematical modeling of fluid and sediment transport processes in rivers.
Dr. Townsend chaired both the Hydrotechnical Division (1988-92) and the Technical Activities Committee (1996-00) of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) and was president of the society (2001-02). Dr Townsend received the CSCE's Camille A. Dagenais award for his research contributions to Hydrotechnical Engineering (2003). He is a fellow of both CSCE and the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC).