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I observe and analyse aerosols, clouds, and precipitation in the atmosphere in order to understand their interactions with each other, our climate, and humanity.

As a member of the , I develop retrievals within the (ORAC), which produces data for the and . I lead the of validation flights for . I have expertise in the estimation of robust and useful uncertainties on satellite remote sensing data. That was especially useful in my assessment of the aerosol component of the .

Carl Sagan described the Earth as a “pale blue dot” and clouds are what make that dot pale, being responsible for about two-thirds of the planet’s albedo. Almost all cloud droplets form on suspended particles known as aerosols such as sea salt, droplets of sulphuric acid, and dust. Changes in the loading of aerosols affects the properties and distribution of clouds, impacting on the Earth’s energy and water budgets. Aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) were identified as the most uncertain human climate forcing in the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR6). These uncertainties lead to a large uncertainty in global equilibrium climate sensitivity (the temperature change per unit climate forcing) as models can reproduce historical temperatures with an under/over-estimate of aerosol cooling compensated by a low/high climate sensitivity^,. New constraints on ACI are essential for accurately predicting future climate.

More information about the research group I co-lead can be found at 

I have supervised a range of undergraduate research projects and summer internships:

• PA3900 (Leicester)
  • Space Lasers and Spy Cameras: Monitoring the  with , 2026
  • Unveiling the impact of rising temperatures on air quality (using  observations), 2024
• GY7720 (Leicester)
  • A remote sensing framework to monitor land and air environment in the Gaza Strip and surrounding area during the first year of the ongoing war, 2025
• Summer internships
  • Exploring RTTOV Simulations for Land Surface Temperature Retrievals and Crop Monitoring, 2025
  • Are clouds fractal?, 2024
  • , 2021
  • , 2019
  • , 2018
  • , 2017
  • , 2015
  • , 2014
• MPhys (Oxford)
  • , 2023
  • , 2022 
  • Monitoring aerosols above clouds ( and ), 2021
  • , 2020
  • , 2015
  • , 2014

For details on graduate-level supervision opportunities, please see the website of my .

I lecture:

• units 1 and 2 of , on elementary calculus and vectors;
• unit 3 of , on Fourier series and transforms (and am also module leader);
• part 4 of , on data visualisation and basic statistical analysis, forming the first step of our Physics with Data Science degree; and
• part 2 of , on descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing.

I have 15 years of experience in small-group tutoring of undergraduates in mathematical methods, statistics, optics, fluid mechanics, climate science, dynamical systems, and atmospheric physics. This included a Stipendiary Lectureship at St. Hugh's College, Oxford from 2016 to 2020.

I give talks at the National Space Centre about once a month, called "Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining" on how clouds form and pollution affects them.

A talk I gave as part of the JASMIN User Seminar Series, on using Python to evaluate aerosols in the UK Earth System model, .

NCEO representative to the of the UK National Climate Science Partnership (2024-)

for the College of Science and Engineering on the Senate of the Â鶹ÊÓƵ (2025-2029)

Member of the ATSR Scientific Advisory Group (2018-)

Fellow of the (2019-)

Member of the User Community Advisory Group (2022-)

Co-editor of , a special issue for Remote Sensing

Invited Presentations

• An Observational View on Aerosols and Clouds, a Climate Physics Seminar at Imperial College (UK) on 10 Dec 2024
• Atmospheric Scattering: Clouds and Aerosols, presented at the Thermal Remote Sensing Workshop at Space Park Leicester (UK) on 2 Dec 2024
• Large, systematic, and often overlooked: Uncertainties in aerosol and cloud ECVs, presented to the ISSI Workshop on Uncertainties in ECVs in Bern, Switzerland on 13-17 Nov 2023
• Moving beyond the mean: Capturing variability in satellite observations of aerosol, presented to the Joint Workshop on Representation Uncertainty in the Earth Sciences in March 2021.
• Constraining aerosols and their radiative effect with Earth Observation, presented to the Workshop on the Role of Anthropogenic Aerosols in Atlantic Multidecadal Variability at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (Reading, UK) in March 2019.
• The subtleties of using satellite data for model development and assessment, a general seminar at the Met Office (Exeter, UK) in June 2018.
• , presented to the Sixth ESA Collocation Meeting (Frascati, Italy) in September 2015.
• Optimal estimation retrieval of aerosol properties from the ground and space, a TROPOS-Meteorology Joint Colloquium at the University of Leipzig (Germany) in September 2015.
• Parallel retrieval of aerosol and cloud, an Earth Observation Seminar at the Space Research Centre at the Â鶹ÊÓƵ (UK) in June 2015.
• Examples of uncertainty characterisation in atmospheric retrievals, presented to the ESA SST CCI User Workshop on Uncertainties (Exeter, UK) in November 2014.
• , presented to the Fifth ESA Collocation Meeting (Frascati, Italy) in October 2014.
• Laser radar observations of Eyjafjallajökull ash, a Hotstuff Seminar at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol (UK) in May 2013.
  

Submitted Presentations

2025: EarthCARE Validation Meeting (), AEROCOM (Oral & Poster), NCEO Conference (Oral), Living Planet Symposium ()

2024: ISCCP CWG Meeting (Poster), ACPC Workshop (Oral), ATMOS (), UK EO Conference (Oral), AEROCOM ()
2023: NCEO Conference ()

2022: AEROCOM (), EO Week (Oral), Living Planet Symposium ()

2021: AEROCOM (), UK Earth Observation Week ()

2020: AEROCOM (), NCEO-CEOI Conference ()

2019: AEROCOM ( and ), National Earth Observation Conference (), Sentinel-3 Validation Team Meeting ()

2018: AEROCOM (), ATMOS (), National Earth Observation Conference (Oral & )

2017: AEROCOM (), International Conference on Aerosol Cycle (), R.Met.Soc Annual Conference ()

2016: Living Planet Symposium ()

2015: AEROCOM (), ATMOS (), RPSoc-NCEO-CEOI Conference ( & )

2014: AEROCOM (), NCEO-CEOI Joint Science Conference ()

2013: AEROCOM (), Remote sensing of atmospheric aerosol, clouds, and aerosol-cloud interactions workshop (Oral)

2012: Aerosol Society Workshop on Atmospheric Measurement of Volcanic Ash (), ISARS (), ISTP ()

2011: EGU General Assembly ()

2010: ISARS (), Meeting on the Eyjafjallajökull eruption (Oral)

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Sep 2015)
A nationally recognised assessment of “commitment to professionalism in teaching and learning in higher education.”

D.Phil in Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics from the University of Oxford (Dec 2013)
My research (under the supervision of Don Grainger) applied the techniques of non-linear regression to improve data products generated by a Raman lidar. An optimal estimation. A retrieval of aerosol scattering properties was developed, demonstrating superior performance in high-noise conditions compared to existing algorithms. A selection of calibration techniques were developed to improve the error budget of an instrument I maintained and operated throughout my studies, though are more widely applicable. Observations of the Eyjafjallajökull ash plume of 2010 were made, with an estimate of the particle size derived.

MPhys from the University of Oxford (Jun 2009)
An exhaustive four-year course covering all major disciplines of physics. I specialised in particle and atmospheric physics, including an investigation under the supervision of the late John Barnett of the impact of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) on frontal variability around the UK.