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I am a Lecturer in Volcanology in the Department of Earth Sciences, at Durham University (my departmental webpage can be found here). I am part of a vibrant volcanology research group that includes seven staff, three postdocs and eleven PhD students. If you are interested in joining this group as a graduate student, postdoc or postdoctoral fellow, you can see what current opportunities there are within our group, and what PhD projects I am offering.

Research

My main research goal is to understand the physical processes that drive and control a volcanic eruption - what makes a volcano erupt the way it does? I use a variety of tools to address this question, including laboratory experiments, numerical simulations and field investigation. This work relies on collaboration with other researchers in a variety of disciplines, from around the world. More details of my research can be found on my research pages.

Many of the physical processes that are important in volcanic systems are also important in other disciplines. I have developed a lattice Boltzmann model, LBflow, for the numerical investigation of mesoscale fluid dynamic processes that is relevant to many areas of scientific and engineering research. The code is accurate, efficient and easy to use. It is also designed to be flexible and extensible, and could find application in a broad range of flow problems. Further details, including how to obtain the model, are available on my LBflow pages.

Education and outreach

I created and maintain PubVolc, a web-based database of recent volcanology articles. The goal of the PubVolc project is to help researchers from all over the world, particularly those who are poorly-resourced, to keep up-to-date with the latest research in volcanology. You can get browse the latest articles, and get involved by uploading details of recent publications - both yours and other people's.

I recently made a documentary on the physics of volcanic eruptions for National Geographic/Discovery Channel and Channel 5: How to build a volcano. You can learn more about the science behind the documentary on my Stromboli research page.

I teach a third year undergraduate course in volcanology at Durham which is based around a field trip to Tenerife. I also teach a first year elementary maths course for Earth Scientists - a little bit of maths can get you a long way!