Professor Jamie Lead

Jamie LeadProfessor Jamie Lead’s research aims to understand nanoscale phenomena in the environment and he is interested in investigating natural nanomaterials, manufactured nanomaterials and their interaction. He is Director of FENAC (Facility of Environmental Nanoscience Analysis and Characterisation).

Professor Lead obtained a BSc in Environmental Science in the School of Chemical and Molecular Sciences at the University of Sussex in 1990. After a year out of academia, he moved to Lancaster University where he completed a PhD on the role of humic substances in the chemistry of lanthanides and actinides in freshwaters and soils in 1994. He has undertaken postdoctoral work in the area of aquatic chemistry in the UK, Europe and Australia. He began his present appointment at the University of Birmingham as a lecturer in January 2000; in 2004 became a senior lecturer and in 2006 a Reader in Aquatic Chemistry. In 2006-07, he was an invited visiting scientist at the CSIRO, Sydney, Australia. He was granted a personal chair, as Professor of Environmental Nanoscience, in 2008. Professor Lead is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the Institute of Nanotechnology. He is a member of several committees and advisory boards both nationally and internationally and is editor of the journal Environmental Chemsitry.

Professor Leads’s research Interests include:

  • Understanding the relationship between physical and chemical properties of nanomaterials and their effects on environmental and human health
  • Understanding how nanomaterials behave in the environment, linking chemistry, transport and bioavailability
  • Characterisation of the structure and properties of environmental aquatic/terrestrial colloids and nanoparticles
  • Quantifying the interactions between manufactured nanomaterials and natural colloids and nanoparticles
  • Chemical speciation, particularly trace metals in polluted and pristine aquatic, soil and sediment systems
  • The development and optimisation of novel analytical and sampling procedures