Chris Bertram graduated in Engineering Science in 1971 and gained his doctorate in 1975 with a thesis on ultrasonic measurement of arterial mechanical properties. He then worked in haemodynamics at Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Physiology. From 1977, as a research associate, he experimented on unsteady flow separation and modelled collapsed-tube flows at Cambridge University’s Applied Mathematics department (DAMTP). In 1980, he was appointed lecturer at the then Centre for Biomedical Engineering of University of New South Wales. He was promoted to senior lecturer in 1985, and to associate professor in 1990, lecturing on signal analysis, medical instrumentation, cardiovascular dynamics, medical imaging, and physiological fluid mechanics. He moved to the University of Sydney in 2010, becoming a Professorial Research Fellow in 2020. He has published over 100 full papers in peer-reviewed journals, and over 150 book chapters, conference contributions, and other articles. For many years, he conducted experiments on self-excited oscillations of collapsed-tube flows, and these investigations form the most comprehensive investigation of this dynamical system. In parallel, he conducted numerical modelling in several areas, most recently cerebrospinal fluid mechanics. His current research is on pace-making and pumping in the lymphatic vascular system. He has been a member of the World Council of Biomechanics, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Fluids and Structures.