 A native of South Africa, John earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineeringat the University of Cape Town in 1969, an M.S.in environmental engineering in 1972, and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Harvard University in 1976.Before coming to Harvard, he worked as an engineer in the government water agencies of South Africa and Mozambique; an epidemiologist at the Cholera Research Center, now ICDDR,B in Bangladesh; a professor of water resources at the University of North Carolina; and, for 20 years, at the World Bank, where he helped oversee projects in water resources, irrigation, hydropower, and sanitation.