"It's a marvellous place to be conducting research and teaching environmental issues," he says. "Australia is in a unique position with multi-faceted resource issues around mining, water allocation, and the urbanisation of agricultural land, all of which provide huge opportunities for us to do world-class research here."

Andrew is also delighted that his new role has given him the chance to build a strong interdisciplinary team like those he worked with in his previous position as director of Environmental Programs in Geosciences at Texas A & M University. "In that role I was dealing with oceanographers, meteorologists, geologists, geographers, and ecologists to grow environmental programmes," he says. "I became very interested in the interdisciplinary possibilities that a school of environment could offer and wanted to use my experience to build a team like that in a university."

Andrew's academic life began in the 1970s at the University of Hull, but has gone on to span the globe. After completing a BSc in geography, geology and biology at Hull he headed to the University of Colorado to do a masters degree, then accepted a geography lectureship at the University of Sierra Leone. While there, he took advantage of the opportunity to work part-time on a rather unusual DPhil through the University of Sussex. "I focused on changing land use in Sierra Leone, and its impact on soil erosion. I went through the archives looking at the history of deforestation, and interviewed local farmers about soil conservation, then rented a hill slope in a village and grew rice and cassava, using different conservation methods and measuring their success."

In 1982, with his doctorate complete, he returned to the UK, working first at the University of Reading, and then moving to Leicester University in 1993. During this period he was a visiting professor at both Rijksuniversitiet in Gent and University College, Dublin. He also worked with the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the EU and a number of British, American and European research councils.

It was as Chair of Leicester's Geography Department that he was first given the responsibility of developing an academic team, and found it was a challenge he particularly enjoyed. "The department at Leicester was very strong, but had become rather stagnant, so I was given some money to build it up. It was a process I relished." When he moved to Texas A& M in 2005, he successfully redeveloped its environmental programme too, almost tripling the number of undergraduate students by his departure in 2010. "I think these projects are my forte, so when I heard about the opportunity to build a new school at Flinders it appealed to me tremendously."

The prospectus he received from ASI further whetted his appetite and, after initial discussions with both the ASI team and a couple of his Melbourne-based PhD students, who praised Australian academia, he submitted an application. "ASI were great to work with. They gave me the usual couple of days extension because I was late getting the application together, and kept me informed about all the deadlines and details right through the process.

And when I came to Adelaide for an interview I was very impressed by the vision the Vice Chancellor, Michael Barber, had for the new school."

A big attraction for Andrew was learning that the new facility was to host two national research units - the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training, and Airborne Research Australia. "The Airborne Research Unit, which uses remotely sensed images from satellites and aircraft, is of particular interest to me because that is very important for the study of land use, which is my specialist field." Equally welcome was the unexpected news that health sciences would also be included in the new framework, with environmental health experts being moved from the medical school. "It doesn't make us unique, but it is certainly unusual. I believe it is a really good opportunity for us because the human health outcomes of environmental issues are extremely important and are often overlooked."

Today, a year down the track, Andrew is happy with the way the school is shaping up, but believes there is still plenty of room for expansion. "What we have now, with geo-scientists, meteorologists, oceanographers, hydrogeologists, geographers, population experts, environmental health people and environmental managers, is a great start, but in 10 or 15 years I hope it will be even more diverse. "We have just set up a joint research centre with the School of Biology, and are looking to develop some sort of affiliation with environmental economists, environmental historians and those working on the politics of the environment. Our archaeologists are also interested in close collaboration so I think the school will continue to evolve." The new collaborative programmes are already proving a draw card for overseas students and researchers and Andrew believes the school offers them unparalleled opportunities to gain first-hand experience with real world resource issues.

"I'm very pleased to be here, and very pleased with ASI for helping make it possible - so much so, in fact, that I have just hired them to find us a professor in the water area."