Birmingham Plastics Network researchers

Professor Aleksandra Cavoski’s research interests are in the field of environmental law and EU law, including certain aspects of public international law. Her research agenda is inter-disciplinary and explores the intersection of law and other disciplines, in particular politics, science, public policy and language. Aleksandra is the College of Arts and Law Director of Global ...

I am a (human) geographer by training and multi-disciplinary researcher by choice; and have, to date, had the good fortune of practising these ‘trades’ within the three related disciplines of Geography, Environmental Studies and, currently, Area Studies.

I am a poet and critic publishing on contemporary poetry, environmental writing and ecocriticism, with a focus on interdisciplinarity. 

My research centres on directing, performance practice and the creation of new work.

I have published widely on theatre practice, especially directing, and significantly on the work of Odin Teatret and Eugenio Barba. I have recently completed the monograph The Director and Directing: Craft, Process and Aesthetic in Contemporary Theatre (Palgrave Macmillan).

I am co-artistic director ...

Robert Lee is Professor of Law of Birmingham Law School. He is a former Head of School and Director of the Centre for Employability, Professional Legal Education and Research (CEPLER). He has acted as specialist adviser to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the House of Commons and the National Assembly for Wales and has worked for the Department for the Environment in Northern ...

I am a composer of electroacoustic music, specialising in acousmatic composition and multichannel audio.

Dr Walters Nsoh is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of Birmingham. His research relates primarily to the intersection between property (land) law and environmental law, the legal and policy challenges to nature conservation and the sustainable management of natural resources. His book The Privatisation of Biodiversity? - New Approaches to Conservation Law(Edward Elgar Publishing ...

Raya AL-Dadah is a Reader in Sustainable Energy Technologies and Head of the Sustainable Energy Technology Laboratory. She took lectureship position at UoB in 1995, promoted to senior lecturer in 2014 and to a reader in 2019. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Refrigeration, Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, member of the Higher Education Academy and associate member of the ...

Bushra Al-Duri is a Professor in in Sustainable Process Engineering.

Her track record exceeds 132 publications, including 46 conference papers, 22 keynote lectures and 28 PhD studentships.  Her specialty covers fundamentals and design of high-pressure high-temperature processes, to convert hazardous waste to useful compounds, clean water and energy. Her latest work involves assesses a novel ...

Maria Chiara Arno (Chiara) is a Birmingham Fellow, working across the School of Chemistry and the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences.

With a background in polymer chemistry and nanoparticle design, Dr Arno’s research interests span across a diverse range of disciplines, including Polymer Chemistry, Materials Science, and Life Sciences. Her current research is focussed on the ...

Melanie’s research is at the interface between chemistry, chemical engineering and physics. She has 15 years experience of developing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) experiments to probe chemistry and flow in complex systems and has published over 30 papers and book chapters in this area.

Melanie is also a part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, an interdisciplinary team of more ...

Nigel Cassidy has over 30 years’ academic and industrial experience in near-surface geophysics, geotechnical engineering and numerical modelling. His research focuses on the development of remote monitoring, modelling and inversion techniques to solve practical environmental and geo-engineering problems.

Nigel has published 70+ peer-reviewed international journal papers, articles and book ...

In September 2017, Andrew joined the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham as Professor of Chemistry. He leads the Dove Research Group, a multinational collection of vibrant and dynamic researchers that are focussed on challenges in polymer and materials science.

Professor Dove is part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, an interdisciplinary team of more than 40 academics working ...

Professor Fernando is part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, an interdisciplinary team of more than 40 academics working together to shape the fate and sustainable future of plastics.  This unique team brings together chemists, environmental scientists, engineers, philosophers, linguists, economists, artists, writers, lawyers, and experts in many other fields, to holistically address ...

In April 2021, Professor Andreas Hornung was appointed Emeritus Professor at the University of Birmingham.

Andreas Hornung holds 21 patents and has published more than 340 scientific publications to date.

The main strategic topic of Hornung’s work today is the development of decentralized power providing units combined with pyrolysis, gasification and digestion units – called the ...

Dr. Mike Jenkins is an Associate Professor in the School of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham. He is a research active polymer scientist and thermal analyst with over 20 years of professional experience in these fields, he also leads the polymer characterization and thermal analysis research group.

To date, he has authored over 60 refereed journal papers in the area of ...

Gary has over 20 years expertise in resource efficiency and the development of processes to recover, upgrade and remanufacture materials and chemicals.

Gary works at the interface of chemical engineering/chemistry/materials and has expertise in high pressure engineering and thermo-chemical processing, specifically in reaction engineering, separation technology, polymer/composite processing and ...

Rachel O’Reilly holds a Chair in Chemistry within the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Birmingham. She graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1998 with a BA in Natural Sciences, and in 1999 with an MSc in Chemistry and completed her PhD in 2003 from Imperial College London. She has held a number of prestigious fellowships from the ...

Jonathan Seville is Professor of Formulation Engineering at the University of Birmingham.

Formulation Engineeringconcerns the design, manufacture and use of products which are structured to create desirable effects when they are consumed or used. Examples are foods, pharmaceuticals, fast-moving consumer goods such as cleaners, and speciality products such as paints, catalysts, detergents ...

Dr Sharifi is a Lecturer in Water Engineering in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Birmingham. In the last 10 years, he has worked on several research projects in the areas of Hydrology, Hydraulics and Environmental Engineering.

Dr Sharifi’s primary research interests lie in the area of river and environmental hydraulics, rainfall-runoff modelling, multi-objective ...

Kit Windows-Yule is a Turing Fellow, a two-time Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellow, and an Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering, working jointly with the School of Physics and Astronomy’s Positron Imaging Centre.

Kit’s research interests concern the dynamics of particulate, fluid, and multiphase systems, and the development of novel experimental and numerical ...

Professor Joe Wood leads the Catalysis and Reaction Engineering research group in the School of Chemical Engineering.

He has published over 110 refereed research articles including journal papers and book chapters, plus over 85 conference papers covering a range of topics in catalysis, catalytic reactor operation and environmental engineering.

He has received major grants from EPSRC and works ...

Dr Mohamed Abdallah has wide experience in applying mass spectrometric techniques for analysis of trace levels of environmental pollutants in biotic and abiotic matrices including different human tissues. He has particular interest in assessing the risk from human exposure to emerging contaminants using various exposure and pharmacokinetic models. Abdallah is also actively engaged in ...

Dr Natasha Cornea’s research sits at the intersections of urban and development geographies, focusing on urban environmental governance and politics in Indian and Zambian cities. Conceptually her research draws on post-structuralist and situated approaches to urban political ecology, the everyday state and everyday governance.

Dr Natasha Cornea is part of the Birmingham ...

Simon is an interdisciplinary lecturer in geography with broad research interests around human interactions with water and landscapes.  Much of his work focuses on “Anthropocene geomorphology” - unique landforms resulting from interactions between human activities and natural processes. Examples include how waste plastic is being incorporated into sediments and fluvial transport ...

Stuart is an environmental chemist whose research addresses all aspects of the environmental sources, fate and behaviour of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). He has particular interests in human exposure to POPs with a focus on indoor pathways. He is also active in research that explores the environmental forensics utility of chirality.

Stuart is part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, an ...

Professor Peter Kraftl is best known for his research on children’s geographies, focusing on children and young people’s experiences of and interactions with environmental processes – such as sustainable urban design, environmental resources and pollution. He also publishes on geographies of education and architecture. He is currently national co-lead for the Children, Young ...

Professor Dr Stefan Krause is Professor of Ecohydrology and Biogeochemistry in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. His interdisciplinary research group on coupled groundwater and surface water systems investigates the multifaceted impacts of global environmental change on hydrological fluxes, biogeochemical cycling and contaminant transport, and ecohydrological ...

Iseult Lynch is an Associate Editor for Environmental Science: Nano, and Deputy director for the Facility for Environmental Nanomaterials Analysis and Characterisation (FENAC) at the University of Birmingham.  Her research focuses on the environmental interactions of nanoparticles and nanostructured surfaces with biological entities from macromolecules to organisms.

She has a very ...

Jon Sadler is a biogeographer and ecologist whose research focuses on species population and assemblage dynamics in animals (sometimes plants). His work is highly interdisciplinary, bisecting biogeography, ecology, urban design, riparian management and island Biogeography. It uses approaches that combine detailed field studies, field and laboratory experimentation, sometimes with social science ...

Professor Sambrook Smith investigates the linkages between river processes and sedimentology at scales ranging from individual pores within a river bed up to km-long bars in large rivers.

The World’s largest rivers suffer from a paucity of knowledge about how they currently function, how they have evolved through time and how they may respond to future environmental changes. This lack of ...

Professor Valsami-Jones’ research interests focus on understanding reactivity at the nanoscale, particularly interactions of nanoparticles with pollutants and biota and biomineralisation processes. She has carried out research on the interaction of a variety of carbon- and metal-based nano-objects with biota in vitro and in vivo and has pioneered novel methods of labelling ...

Dr Sami Bensassi joined Birmingham Business School in January 2013. He is currently a Reader in Trade and Development Economics. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Paris-Nanterre.

His research interests lie at the intersection of trade, development and institutions. His recent work has focused on trade informality, corruption and conflict zones.  Dr Sami Bensassi's research ...

Professor Robert Elliott is an applied economist who works at the intersection of international economics, development economics, environmental and energy economics and international business. He has a particular interest in the Chinese economy, firm behaviour, natural disasters and the impact of globalisation on the environment.

He is an editor for the Sustainable Future Policy Lab, ...

Dr Emma A. Foster is a Associate Professor in international politics. Emma’s research interests include gender and sexuality studies, (de)politicisation and anti-politics, international sustainable development policy and development studies more broadly.

Emma co-convenes the Gender and Feminist Theory Group, a vibrant research group hosted in POLSIS and bringing together ...

Julie is part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, an interdisciplinary team of more than 40 academics working together to shape the fate and sustainable future of plastics. This unique team brings together chemists, environmental scientists, philosophers, linguists, economists, and experts in many other fields, to holistically address the global plastics problem.

A senior fellow and strategic leader, with experience across public sector and private organisations.

He is passionate about improving lives through cost-effective public services, delivered with (not just "to") communities.

His research interests focus on public service reform and the use of "evidence" by public agencies. This includes how managers and practitioners can access the best ...

Professor David Maddison is Director of the Birmingham Centre for Environmental and Energy Economics and Management (BCEEEM). He is also co-editor of the journal Climate Change Economics.

David Maddison is a part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, an interdisciplinary team of more than 40 academics working together to shape the fate and sustainable future of ...