Professor Francis Pope PhD, MChem, MA(Cantab)

Francis Pope

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Professor of Atmospheric Science

Contact details

Address
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Francis is an environmental scientist with wide ranging interests in the atmospheric sciences, human health and sustainable cities. He trained as a physical chemist and he uses this fundamental knowledge to develop novel instrumentation and probe systems of interest. 

Francis has active research projects in the broad areas of air pollution, climate change, fundamental aerosol chemistry and microphysics, and city resilience. He leads the ‘A Systems Approach to Air Pollution (ASAP) East Africa’ which is taking a multi-disciplinary approach to tackling air pollution in the study cities of Nairobi, Kampala, and Addis Ababa.  

Qualifications

2010 – MA (Cantab) – University of Cambridge

2005 – Ph.D. – University of Bristol

2001 – MChem (international) – University of Leeds

Postgraduate supervision

Francis Pope is a chemist with wide ranging interests in the atmospheric sciences. He applies a fundamental physicochemical approach to investigate atmospheric species and develops novel instrumentation to probe their processes. In particular he is interested in the assessment of geoengineering schemes, primary biological aerosols and their role in atmosphere-biosphere interactions, and multi-parameter processing and aging of aerosols. Dr Pope is interested in supervising doctoral researchers in the following areas:

Assessment of geoengineering options
Aerosol interactions between the atmosphere and biosphere
Instrumentation and laboratory investigation of atmospheric chemistry

Other activities

Convener of the ‘Aerosol chemistry and microphysics’ session at the European Geophysical Union (EGU) conference.

Associate editor of the Copernicus journal Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Example Media Work

Member of the following societies:

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), European Geophysical Union (EGU), and UK Aerosol Society

Reviewer for the following journals:

Nature Communications, Physics Review Letters, Environmental Science & Technology, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Faraday Discussions, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, Physical Chemistry Letters, Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Journal of Chemical Physics, and Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Faherty, T, Badri, H, Hu, D, Voliotis, A, Pope, FD, Mudway, I, Smith, J & McFiggans, G 2024, 'HIPTox—Hazard Identification Platform to Assess the Health Impacts from Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollutant Exposures, through Mechanistic Toxicology: A Single-Centre Double-Blind Human Exposure Trial Protocol', International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 21, no. 3, 284. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21030284

Singh, A, Morley, GL, Coignet, C, Leach, F, Pope, FD, Neil Thomas, G, Stacey, B, Bush, T, Cole, S, Economides, G, Anderson, R, Abreu, P & Bartington, SE 2024, 'Impacts of ambient air quality on acute asthma hospital admissions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Oxford City, UK: a time-series study', BMJ open, vol. 14, no. 1, e070704. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-070704

Xiang, J, Ghaffarpasand, O & Pope, FD 2024, 'Mapping urban mobility using vehicle telematics to understand driving behaviour', Scientific Reports, vol. 14, no. 1, 3271. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-53717-6

Ghaffarpasand, O, Okure, D, Green, P, Sayyahi, S, Adong, P, Sserunjogi, R, Bainomugisha, E & Pope, FD 2024, 'The impact of urban mobility on air pollution in Kampala, an exemplar sub-Saharan African city', Atmospheric Pollution Research, vol. 15, no. 4, 102057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apr.2024.102057

Manshur, T, Luiu, C, Avis, WR, Bukachi, V, Gatari, M, Mulligan, J, Ng'an'ga, D, Radcliffe, J, Singh, A, Waiguru, E, Wandera, A & Pope, FD 2023, 'A citizen science approach for air quality monitoring in a Kenyan informal development', City and Environment Interactions, vol. 19, 100105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cacint.2023.100105

Mills, S, Milsom, A, Pfrang, C, MacKenzie, AR & Pope, F 2023, 'Acoustic levitation of pollen and visualisation of hygroscopic behaviour', Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, vol. 16, no. 20, pp. 4885–4898. https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4885-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-4885-2023-supplement

Mills, SA, Bousiotis, D, Maya-Manzano, JM, Tummon, F, MacKenzie, AR & Pope, FD 2023, 'Constructing a pollen proxy from low-cost Optical Particle Counter (OPC) data processed with Neural Networks and Random Forests', Science of the Total Environment, vol. 871, 161969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161969

Mills, S, Bousiotis, D, Maya-Manzano, J, Tummon, F, MacKenzie, AR & Pope, F 2023, 'Constructing a pollen proxy from low-cost Optical Particle Counter (OPC) data processed with Neural Networks and Random Forests', Science of the Total Environment, vol. 871, 161969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161969

Ghaffarpasand, O, Ropkins, K, Beddows, DCS & Pope, FD 2023, 'Detecting high emitting vehicle subsets using emission remote sensing systems', Science of the Total Environment, vol. 858, no. Pt 2, 159814. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159814

Stacey, B, Harrison, RM & Pope, FD 2023, 'Emissions of ultrafine particles from civil aircraft: dependence upon aircraft type and passenger load', npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, vol. 6, no. 1, 161. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-023-00477-1

Dickinson-Craig, E, Badarch, J, Bartington, S, Hemming, K, Thayakaran, R, Day, R, Pope, F, Chuluunbaatar, B, Boldbaatar, D, Ochir, C, Warburton, D, Thomas, GN & Manaseki-Holland, S 2023, 'Impact assessment of a raw coal ban on maternal and child health outcomes in Ulaanbaatar: a protocol for an interrupted time series study', BMJ open, vol. 13, no. 4, e061723. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-061723

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Kearney, J, Bryson, JR, Broome, M, Leach, JM, Luiu, C, Pope, F & Radcliffe, J 2024, Shocks, recovery processes and cultivating urban plasticity: a neuroplasticity-informed perspective on urban resilience. in L Andres, JR Bryson, A Ersoy & L Reardon (eds), Pandemic Recovery?: Reframing and Rescaling Societal Challenges. 1 edn, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., pp. 27-41. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781802201116.00010

Conference contribution

Mills, S, MacKenzie, R & Pope, F 2023, Constructing a pollen proxy from low-cost Optical Particle Counter (OPC) data processed with Neural Networks and Random Forests. in EGU General Assembly 2023., EGU23-433, European Geosciences Union, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24/04/23. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-433

Preprint

Faherty, T, Badri, H, Hu, D, Voliotis, A, Pope, FD, Mudway, I, Smith, J & McFiggans, G 2023 'HIPTox – Hazard Identification Platform to Assess the Health Impacts from Indoor and Outdoor Air Pollutant Exposures, through Mechanistic Toxicology: A single-centre double-blind human exposure trial protocol' medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.12.13.23299801

Review article

Akasha, H, Ghaffarpasand, O & Pope, FD 2023, 'Climate Change, Air Pollution and the Associated Burden of Disease in the Arabian Peninsula and Neighbouring Regions: A Critical Review of the Literature', Sustainability, vol. 15, no. 4, 3766. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043766

View all publications in research portal