Ian Bryden was born in Dumfrieshire in 1958 and attended Lockerbie Primary School and Lockerbie Academy before attending the University of Edinburgh where he received the Degree of BSc with 1^st class honours. He then undertook PhD research at the University, as a CASE student, in association with the National Maritime Institute.

After receiving the degree of PhD for his thesis "Long Floating Cylinders in Three Dimensional Random Seas" (actually floating pipes!) he took a post as research assistant in the Department of Offshore Engineering at Heriot-Watt University. On leaving Heriot Watt he moved to British Maritime Technology Ltd based at Feltham. (Actually BMT was just the renamed NMI!) In 1986 he moved back to Heriot-Watt to take a lectureship in the Department of Offshore Engineering. In 1992 he took the position of senior engineer with the Institute of Offshore Engineering. For the next four years he was based in Stromness in Orkney. During this time he extended his commercial interests in environmental interactions between the petroleum industry and the environment and his long-standing research interests in maritime renewable energy.

He is currently Professor and Head of the School of Mechanical and Offshore Engineering at the Robert Gordon University. In this position he is responsible for all the activities in the School. In addition he is currently co-ordinator of a major multinational EU funded project in tidal current power and coinvestigator in two parallel studies into the economics and environmental implications of tidal power. His petroleum interests continue and he regularly acts as a consultant to the petroleum industry in issues relating to drill cutting dispersion and related activities.