Professor Francis Pope PhD, MChem, MA(Cantab)

Francis Pope

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

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 9067
Email
f.pope@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
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

Akasha, H, Ghaffarpasand, O & Pope, FD 2024, 'Air pollution and economic growth in Dubai a fast-growing Middle Eastern city', Atmospheric Environment: X, vol. 21, 100246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeaoa.2024.100246

Singh, A, Joshi, A, Pope, FD, Singh, B, Khare, M, Kota, SH & Radcliffe, J 2024, 'Evaluating alternative technologies to diesel generation in India using multi-criteria decision analysis', Cleaner Energy Systems, vol. 9, 100133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cles.2024.100133

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

González-Alonso, M, Oteros, J, Widmann, M, Maya-Manzano, JM, Skjøth, C, Grewling, L, O'Connor, D, Sofiev, M, Tummon, F, Crouzy, B, Clot, B, Buters, J, Kadantsev, E, Palamarchuk, Y, Martinez-Bracero, M, Pope, FD, Mills, S, Šikoparija, B, Matavulj, P, Schmidt-Weber, CB & Ørby, PV 2024, 'Influence of meteorological variables and air pollutants on measurements from automatic pollen sampling devices', Science of the Total Environment, vol. 931, 172913. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172913

Salana, S, Yu, H, Dai, Z, Subramanian, PSG, Puthussery, JV, Wang, Y, Singh, A, Pope, FD, Leiva G., MA, Rastogi, N, Tripathi, SN, Weber, RJ & Verma, V 2024, 'Inter-continental variability in the relationship of oxidative potential and cytotoxicity with PM2.5 mass', Nature Communications, vol. 15, no. 1, 5263. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49649-4

Pope, FD, Price, R, Woolley, KE, Luiu, C, Alam, MS, Avis, WR, Bartington, SE, Debebe, D, Getaneh, Z, Green, SM, Howells, R, Khare, M, Weldetinsae, A, Lawson, C, Mishra, SK, Neal, B, Newman, K, Singh, A, Teklu Wodajo, B, Thomas, GN & Wilder, F 2024, 'Light painting photography makes particulate matter air pollution visible', Communication Earth & Environment, vol. 5, 294. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01409-4

Mills, SA, MacKenzie, AR & Pope, FD 2024, 'Local spatiotemporal dynamics of particulate matter and oak pollen measured by machine learning aided optical particle counters', Science of the Total Environment, vol. 941, 173450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173450

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 & Pope, FD 2024, 'Telematics data for geospatial and temporal mapping of urban mobility: New insights into travel characteristics and vehicle specific power', Journal of Transport Geography, vol. 115, 103815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2024.103815

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

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

Baruah, A, Bousiotis, D, Damayanti, S, Bigi, A, Ghermandi, G, Harrison, RM & Pope, FD 2024, Enhancing Urban PM2.5 Predictions: An Innovative Machine Learning Approach to Address Data Gaps. in EGU General Assembly 2024., EGU24-6448, EGUsphere, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14/04/24. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-6448

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Air pollution; climate change; transport; international development with respect to the environment