Our people
Professor Christopher Collier has been appointed as the chair in atmospheric science in the School of Earth and Environmentand head of strategic partnerships in the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS).
Professor Collier’s expertise is in meteorology, atmospheric surface-based remote sensing and satellite meteorology and he joins us from the University of Salford’s faculty of science, engineering and the environment (where he was dean from 1999-2003). He has also worked at the Meteorological Office and a number of international and national leadership roles, including president of the Royal Meteorological Society from 2004 to 2006. Professor Collier is science co-ordinator of NERC’s Flood Risk from Extreme Events research programme.
He led the development of the UK’s first unmanned weather radar system, and his work with QinetiQ on the UK’s first Doppler lidar for atmospheric boundary layer research won awards from the Royal Meteorological Society and the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation.
Professor Fiona Meldrum has been appointed as the chair in inorganic chemistry in the School of Chemistry.
She joins us from the University of Bristol, having previously worked in London, Australia, Germany and the United States. Professor Meldrum holds a £1.68m Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council leadership fellowship. The Fellowships provide support for talented researchers who have the potential to develop into the UK’s top international research leaders.
Professor Meldrum’s research focuses on bio-inspired mineralisation – understanding how nature controls and exploits the crystallisation process to produce remarkable materials such as seashells, bones and teeth. She will investigate the impact of confinement on crystallisation, and how this could be exploited to produce new nano-materials with useful properties.
