Senior research staff

  • Dr James Lawrence

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    Dr James Lawrence Senior Lecturer in Geotechnics

    Bio

    An expert in cliff instability and coastal recession, Dr Lawrence’s has a wide body of experience having worked for the petroleum industry in reservoir categorisation and most recently in the UKs program in siting a geological repository for radioactive waste.

  • Dr John-Paul Latham

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    Dr John-Paul Latham Reader in Geomechanics

    Bio

    Dr. Latham is co-developer of the VGeST suite of geoscientific modelling tools and has produced extensive research work in FEM/DEM modelling. Having lectured and provided keynote speeches across the world, Dr. Latham is a reknowned expert in structural and rock mechanics. He is part of the ORCHYD H2020 project, which seeks to develop a new hybrid rock drilling technology ; ORCHYD is a follow-up to the SURE H2020 project, which applied g eothermal energy research and 'Solidity' to enhance heat recovery using water jet drilling) . Solidity is the group's  combined FEM/DEM method code, and is applicable on all scales. For example, while an ESGRG PhD recently completed by Lluis via Estrem in July 2021 used solidity to explore the stability of coastal and breakwater armour units and rock armour, the code is also being applied to rock destruction mechanisms at microstructural scales. 

  • Dr Philippa Mason

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    Dr Philippa Mason Senior Teaching Fellow

    Bio

    A specialist in remote sensing and geographic information systems, Dr Mason’s continued and distinguished contributions to the field were honoured by the 2016 Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society Award. Her  research interests lie in the application and development of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) in geohazards and tectonics, in spectral geology, UAV imaging, image processing and image exploitation through Machine Learning techniques. Her teaching and research involves the translation of terrestrial Earth Observation techniques, such as InSAR and imaging spectroscopy, to assist in the understanding of geological features and processes on other Earth-like planets such as Venus and Mars. Philippa's ESGRG activities focus on the development of Persistent Scatterer InSAR (PSInSAR) tools for the measurement of small-scale ground deformation in urban and rural settings. 

  • Dr Richard Ghail

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    Dr Richard Ghail Lecturer in Engineering Geology (external; Professor at Royal Holloway Univ of London, Dept of Earth Science)

    Bio

    A leading force in remote sensing research of Venus, Dr Ghail's comprehensive experience and understanding of engineering geology are also put to good use closer to home in investigating the hazards and long term geological processes in London.