Biography

I am a glaciologist but have spent most of my career as a general manager.  My PhD and Post-Doctoral research theme was understanding the mechanical properties of glaciers and sea ice.  In particular I studied the break-up of sea ice from wave action, the formation of icebergs and fundamental research investigating why ice has a very low fracture toughness and how dislocations move through the ice lattice.

This work was done at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge and the University of Hokkaido in Sapporo, Japan.  The laboratory in Sapporo had a machine for growing large single crystals of ice which I used to examine the fracture toughness for various crystal angles.  During this period, I modified an instrument developed for measuring earth tides to measure surface strain changes on sea ice and glaciers.

During my time in Cambridge I undertook a number of field work programmes in the polar regions to observe ice fracturing phenomena.  These took me to McMurdo Sound and Erebus Glacier Tongue with the US Antarctic Research Programme, and to North West and East Greenland in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute.  The outcome of this work was used to model how sea ice interacts with fixed and floating objects.

Following this period of academic research I moved into general management in the commercial world.  I was fortunate to spend a year at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University in California studying for a Masters in Management – the Sloan Program.

In 1995 I was appointed a Deputy Director and for a period I was Acting Director of BAS.  For NERC I led a project to make the insurance sector more aware of government funded research – the TSUNAMI initiative.   With matching funding from the insurance sector I organised a succession of grant rounds which included support for the BAS upper atmospheric research programme of space weather.

In 2000 I became Chief Executive of a charity – the Foundation for Science and Technology.  The Foundation was set up to promote debate between parliamentarians, Whitehall and Devolved Administration officials, and senior decision makers in academia and business on key policy decisions such as the organisation and funding of research, risk management and the response to climate change – see www.foundation.org.uk .

I retired as Chief Executive in 2019 and became a Vice President of the Foundation.  I continue to edit the Foundation’s journal (FST Journal).  The Foundation has close links with the House of Lords.  The current Chair is the Rt Hon Lord Willetts, the former science minister

I have a life-long interest in the polar regions and continue to visit the Antarctic, Spitsbergen, Arctic Norway and Greenland.  I keep up to date by attending conferences.  The dramatic changes from climate change are all too obvious.  The Arctic is facing a variety of dilemmas for example the policy for sustainable development for Greenland, the balance between nature conservation and economic development in the Artic region, the assessment of risk for shipping transiting the Northern Sea Route and cruise ships passing through the North West passage.

I am interested in developing instrumentation for surface strain measurements on sea ice.  Safe operations of shipping in ice infested waters requires a thorough understanding of how the hull and ice behave under impact loading.

I have served on a wide range of committees for government, the insurance sector and universities.  My special interests are in risk management, strategic analysis and modelling and the politics of the polar regions.  I am a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institute of Physics. the Royal Statistical Society and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.  I was awarded an OBE for services to science and have the Polar Medal.

Editor

FST Journal

Invited Lecture

LRF Distinguished Lecture in Safety & Reliability Engineering

University of Aberdeen, 2015

Breaking ice – the challenge of building structures in ice-infested waters: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/engineering/research/lrf-distinguished-lecture-in-safety-reliability-engineering-517.php

Thesis

Creep and fracture of ice and surface strain measurements on glaciers and sea ice.  Submitted to the University of Cambridge in 1977, p1-149