Catherine Walker

Catherine Walker is a Director at WMS Engineering with 10 years’ experience in floodplain risk management. Catherine is passionate about developing collaborative relationships between consultants, councils and communities to improve flood resilience across Australia. Catherine has an honours degree (first class) in Civil Engineering and Arts, is a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland, Chartered Engineer with Engineers Australia and is registered on the National Engineering Register (NER). 

One of Catherine’s key strengths is the ability to translate technical information to non-technical audiences, and she became certified with the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) in 2020. Catherine is skilled in the development and delivery of community consultation strategies for a range of projects, particularly relating to floodplain risk management projects.  Catherine was a member of the inaugural NSW Young Floodplain Managers Committee and led the compilation of flood education resources for use by the FMA community. This led to her being named the 2024 Young Floodplain Manager of the Year.

She has published several papers and presented at numerous Floodplain Management Australia conferences and was awarded the best poster at both the 2017 and 2018 Floodplain Management Australia conferences. Catherine was the recipient of the Highly Commended Award for the 2022 Harold Sternbeck Medal from the 2022 FMA National Conference at Toowoomba for her presentation entitled Getting the most out of flood studies: Connecting Consultants, Councils and Classrooms, and as a Young Floodplain Manager, was also awarded the 2022 Highly Commended Award for the Young Floodplain Manager Outstanding Presenter Award.

Involved in:

• Introduction to Flood Risk Management (August 2025)