Stuart Palmer is a Technical Director-Geotechnical Engineering with Tonkin & Taylor Ltd. He has more than 30 years’ experience in foundation engineering with a specialist interest in earthquake engineering and soil structure interaction. Stuart is actively involved in the seismic design and assessment of buildings in collaboration with structural engineers. He was a lead author of the MBIE national guidance on “Seismic assessment of existing buildings”, section C4 “Geotechnical considerations”, and continues to provide review and technical guidance in the space of geotechnical earthquake engineering.