My research interests are broad, tackling important issues around climate and environmental impacts on the environment and health. This includes impacts of climate mitigation and adaptation, and how these link with health, social and economic issues, which form part of the cutting-edge research on environmental and climate change.
Climate and our environment can impact upon and influence human health. This may occur through for example temperature exposure, urbanisation, flooding, aero-allergens, air pollution, land use and vegetation, and vector-borne or infectious diseases. Understanding these impacts and how they might change, as a result of climate change itself, or how they may be impacted through interventions to mitigate and adapt to climate change is critical for protecting health, today and into the future. My research interests are focused on the impacts of temperature and air pollution on human health, particularly in urban environments, and how these impacts are affected by climate mitigation and adaptation actions. I am interested in the role of interventions in the built environment for climate mitigation and adaptation, such as building retrofit, and green and blue space, including the broader co-benefits and potential trade-offs associated with these measures. I believe the health co-benefits (or inadvertent dis-benefits) of climate mitigation and adaptation actions are critical to understand to ensure health is protected in a warmer world, and responding to the climate crisis could be a huge opportunity to improve public health - I am enthusiastic about understanding and quantifying these health impacts, and understanding the associated health economics.
NIHR HPRU project: Environmental Change and Health This HPRU provides research to support decision making relating to the impacts and responses to the environmental changes that affect our health. Environmental change includes climate change, land-use change, environmental degradation, and the loss of ecosystem services, in the UK and beyond. The impacts to health of mitigation and adaptation measures related to climate change is a key area of current research, to ensure that policies and actions aimed at addressing climate change will also be beneficial for health, and harness co-benefits and minimise unintended consequences. The HPRU helps UKHSA to fulfil its requirements under the UK’s National Adaptation Programme and other policies on sustainable development, and also produces research of relevance to other government departments regarding the health co-benefits of environmental policies.
I have used the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) at high spatial resolution to investigate urban atmospheric processes and phenomena, such as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and how this may affect human health. This includes assessing interventions in the built environment aimed at limiting urban heat, and what the subsequent impacts on health may be.
Current
Honorary Assistant Professor at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham. Co-Deputy Director for the Centre for Net Positive Health and Climate Solutions (Net+) (2024-2029). HPRU3: UKHSA-Lead on Theme 1 'Climate and Health Impacts and Epidemiology' in the HPRU in Climate Change and Health Security (2025-2030).
Government User Group for Health for the UKCP18 Met Office Hadley Centre Climate programme
Lecturing: Climate Change and Health as part of the Environmental Epidemiology module of the Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP); Climate change and health as part of the Bristol Masters in Public health; Climate change and health, co-benefits of carbon policy, and COP & IPCC on Carbon Management Masters module at University of Birmingham.
Fellow of Royal Meteorological Society (FRMetS). Member of London Climate Change Partnership (LCCP) Heat and Health sub-group, West Midlands Climate Change Adaptation Plan Working Group, the UK Indoor Environments Group (UKIEG), the RECLAIM Network
Team representative for cross-Government Health and Housing group, and Overheating Group. Member of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) subgroup and Indoor Environments Group (IEG) of the UKHSA Environmental Public Health Programme Board (EPHPB)
Reviewer: The Lancet Planetary Health, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Environmental Research, Science of the Total Environment, Atmosphere, Urban Climate, Cell Reports Sustainability, Journal of Geophysical Research, Environmental Pollution, Ecological Informatics, Environmental Reviews, Atmospheric Environment, Hygiene and Environmental Health Advances
Past
HPRU2: Co-Lead on Theme 3 'Interventions and Interactions' in the HPRU in Environmental Change and Health (2020-2025).
Scientific organising committee for the RMetS NCAS Atmospheric Science Conference 2022
Member of the Cross Whitehall COP26 Science Working Group
Honorary Research fellow at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham
NIHR HPRU (1st round) Environmental Change and Health: Organiser for PHE Internal HPRU ECH meetings.; Co-manager Theme 2 'Healthy Sustainable Cities'; Lead delivery on Projects 2.3 and 2.4.
Annual UK National Heatwave Planning meeting, and Annual National Cold Weather Plan meeting
Member of European Geophysical Union; Member of American Geophysical Union
Co-supervisor for PhD student
Heath and Wellbeing Departmental Champion
The impact of humans on the global atmosphere occurs through the emission of gases and particles from various activities, including combustion processes (for energy generation) and land-use changes (e.g. changing vegetation through farming or deforestation). These emissions will be different under different energy- and land-use scenarios. As policy-makers help determine legislation on future energy- and land-use, understanding the complex interactions with climate, and the effective communication of this information, is essential to aiding these decisions.
My PhD work (thesis title "Heterogeneous Chemistry in the Troposphere: A Chemical Indirect Effect") involved using a state-of-the-art global model of chemistry and aerosol (GEOS-Chem) to investigate the chemistry of the troposphere. The focus was the impact of aerosols (small particles in the air) on the composition of the troposphere via heterogeneous chemistry (i.e. chemical reactions taking place on the surface of particles). More specifically I looked at uptake of N2O5 and HO2 by particles in the air. The main finding of this work is that heterogeneous processes are important at a global scale for determining burdens of greenhouse gases (such as ozone and methane), as well as regionally for air quality and climate change. Supervised by Prof Mat Evans, Prof Ken Carslaw, and Dr Colin Johnson (UK Met Office). [2006-2010]
Paleoclimatology is the study of climate records from hundreds to millions of years ago. Information about past climate comes from proxy records rather than instruments; proxy records include things like sediment or ice cores, fossils, and tree rings.
This project was an independent research project using oceanic sediment cores from the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP - then known as the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program) to studying transient climates in the Eocene (56-34 million years ago, Ma). Benthic foraminifera (small creatures living in the ocean) were studied for their stable isotopes (𝛿18O and 𝛿13C) as well as trace metal studies (Mg/Ca), and this data was used to assess past climate changes around 40 Ma. Title: “Constraints on Ice Volume During the Middle Eocene”. Supervised by Prof Aradhna Tripati and Prof Harry Elderfield. [2005-2006]