Leadership Team
Professor Nicola Thomas
Head of Department
Nicola is a Professor of Historical and Cultural Geography, focusing on craft geographies. Nicola explores the intersection of material, historical, cultural, social, political and economic contexts of craft makers livelihoods and that of their labour.
Maria Pearce
Professor Nick Gill
Co-Director of Research and Impact
Nick is a political geographer, investigating concerns with issues of justice and injustice. His research strands include Border Control, Migration and Human Mobility; Carceral Practices and Spaces; and The State, Injustice and Justice Systems.
Professor Chris Perry
Co-Director of Research and Impact
Chris is a Professor in Tropical Coastal Geoscience. He focuses on addressing questions about the response of coral reefs and reef-related landforms, such as coral reef islands, to the impacts of environmental and climatic change.
Dr Matt Finn
Co-Director of Education and Student Experience
Matt is a senior lecturer and human geographer, exploring changes in the contemporary conditions of education, and works to understand how childhood and young people's lives vary globally. In this he brings the scholarship of geographical learning and education which is informed by a participatory action research ethos.
Dr Alasdair Jones
Co-Director of Education and Student Experience
Alasdair is an interdisciplinary social scientist with expertise in urban studies and programme evaluation. His research is committed to developing empirical approaches that insights the critical questions concerning urban planning, public spaces, and policy programmes.
Professor Damien Mansell
Co-Director of Education and Student Experience
Damien is an Associate Professor of GIS. As a glaciologist, his research in Greenland, Svalbard, and in Iceland, involves the calving processes of tidewater-terminating glaciers, glacier surges, cryosphere instabilities, and remote sensing for glaciological applications.
Professor Saffron O’Neill
Co-Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Saffron is a human geographer exploring the social science dimensions of climate variability and change, particularly focusing on communication and public engagement. Her research looks at the perception risk, and its implication on public policies.
Professor Dunia Urrego
Co-Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Dunia’s research focuses on the environmental change and human-landscape interactions in tropical and subtropical ecosystems. She uses fossilised plant remains such as pollen grains and charcoal particles to understand the past climate change and ecosystem dynamics.
Professor Kees Jan van Groenigen
Co-Director of Global Engagement
Kees Jan is a biogeochemist, researching to understand how plants and soil respond to environmental change and management practices. He studies carbon and nutrient cycles in a range of ecosystems- grasslands, cropland, and temperate forests.
Dr Pepe Romanillos
Co-Director of Global Engagement
Pepe is a human geographer with research interests in Geographies of death, absence and finitude; Cultural geographies of literature and visuality; and in History and philosophy of geographical thought.
Professor Rolf Aalto
Co-Director of Business Engagement and Innovation
Rolf research rivers and erosion in Australasia, Europe, Asia, South and North America. He leads the Radiometry Lab, which features analytical facilities for tracing particle movement throughout a wide range of fluvial dispersal systems.
Professor Federico Caprotti
Co-Director of Business Engagement and Innovation
Federico is a human geographer interested in sustainable cities and the green economy. His research explores nature and cities from a historical and visual perspective and works on projects in South Africa, and in China.
Professor Ted Feldpausch
Co-Director of Postgraduate Research
Ted is a physical geographer researching global forests and savannas, with a focus on Latin America tropics. He aims to understand the drivers of vegetation dynamics and the effects of changing climate on nutrients cycle.
Dr Cordelia Freeman
Co-Director of Postgraduate Research
Cordelia is a political geographer researching borders, mobility and violence, specifically in Latin America. Her work focuses on abortion mobilities in Latin America, the politics of representation, and borders and geopolitics.
