I am a physical volcanologist with broad interest in environmental hazard, risk and resilience. My physical science background is in fluid dynamics and volcanic processes, including fundamental processes of explosive volcanic eruptions, and multiphase environmental flows including volcanic ash transport, and dynamics of suspensions and granular flows. My main career focus has been the prediction of volcanic hazards and their impacts, including volcanic ash transport, lahars and landslides, volcanic gases and crater lakes. I now work across disciplines to integrate hazard assessment with social and physical vulnerability, risk management structures and community engagement, with social scientists, engineers, mathematicians and statisticians. A current focus is cascading hazard impacts including volcanic ash impacts on agricultural communities and infrastructure, and hydrometeorological hazards including lahars and sediment-charged floods, working in collaboration with academic social scientists, community artists and in-country hazard prediction and risk management agencies.

My ongoing and recent multidisciplinary projects include ‘Strengthening Resilience in Volcanic Areas’ (STREVA; NERC-ESRC NE/J019984/1) for which I am Bristol Principal Investigator, leader of the hazard assessment workpackage and country contact with Ecuador, ‘Crossing Borders and Costing Livelihoods; The Unbearable Heaviness of Volcanic Ash’, NERC International Opportunities Fund, NE/M017621/1 (Co-Investigator) and ‘Harnessing 'citizen science' to reinforce resilience to environmental disasters: creating an evidence base and community of practice' NE/P016014/1 NERC/ESRC/AHRC 'Bulding Resilience' GCRF funding (Co-Investigator). Core elements of these projects have been the development of freely-available hazard assessment tools for volcanic plumes (plumerise.bristol.ac.uk) and lahar hazard (laharflow.bristol.ac.uk) and in-country workshops with communities and stakeholders. In a development context I have ongoing research collaborations with Colombia, Ecuador, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and China, and developing relationships in Peru and DPRK.