Who we are

Members of the University of Reading’s Land Surface Processes Cluster

The cross-School interdisciplinary Land Surface Processes cluster combines research carried out at the University of Reading within the Department of Geography and Environmental Science, the Department of Meteorology, and NCAS-Climate together with external collaborators, in particular the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH), the British Geological survey (BGS), the Met Office Hadley Centre and the European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

The cluster aims to generate impactful knowledge on the Critical Zone in the context of a range of research (predominantly NERC funded) and PhD projects, ranging from studies on climate extremes (flooding, droughts, heatwaves), to renewable energy (ground source heat pumps, biofuels). More widely, we participate in (inter)national research efforts on monitoring and modelling (e.g. CMIP) of the global water, energy and carbon balance (WRCP, GEWEX).

Who 1: Academic staff, Research staff, and PDRAs
Within SAGES: Geography & Environmental Science
Nicholas Branch; Papers: Google Scholar
Hannah Cloke; Papers: Google Scholar
Simon Dadson (visitor from UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the University of Oxford); Papers: Google Scholar
Sandy Harrison; Papers: Google Scholar
Jess Neumann; Papers: Google Scholar
Shovonlal Roy; Papers: Google Scholar
Maria Shahgedanova; Papers: Google Scholar
Anne Verhoef; Papers: Google Scholar
Andrew Wade; Papers: Google Scholar
Kevin White; Papers: Google Scholar
Azin Howells Wright
Within Meteorology or NCAS
Emily Black; Papers: Google Scholar
Lewis Blunn
David Case
Cristina Charlton Perez
Omduth Coceal; Papers: Google Scholar
Peter Clark; Papers: Google Scholar
Sarah Dance (also in Mathematics & Statistics; also in NCEO); Papers: Google Scholar
Natalie Douglas (also with NCEO)
Sue Grimmond; Papers: Google Scholar
Denise Hertwig; Papers: Google Scholar
Dionisa Joseph Mattam (visitor from the Nellikka Ltd., Reading, UK)
Dhirendra Kumar; Papers: Google Scholar
Charlotte Lang; Papers: Google Scholar
Bryan Lawrence (also within Computer Science); Papers: Google Scholar
David Livings
Patrick McGuire; Papers: Google Scholar
Tristan Quaife (also with NCEO); Papers: Google Scholar
Reinhard Schiemann; Papers: Google Scholar
Joy Singarayer
Robin Smith; Papers: Google Scholar
Meg Stretton
Markus Todt (virtual visitor from Met Éireann, Ireland)
Andrew Turner; Papers: Google Scholar
Pier Luigi Vidale; Papers: Google Scholar
Ramesh Visweshwaran (also with NCEO); Papers: Google Scholar
James Weber; Papers: Google Scholar
Charlie Williams (visitor from the University of Bristol); Papers: Google Scholar
Within Agriculture
Michelle Felton
Within Computer Science
Bryan Lawrence (also with Meteorology & NCAS); Papers: Google Scholar
Within Mathematics & Statistics
Sarah Dance (also in Meteorology); Papers: Google Scholar

Who 2: PhD Students
Adetunji Alex Adekanmbi; Papers: Google Scholar
Impact of climate change on soil respiration and resilience
Dedy Antony
Factors affecting soil carbon storage at depth in different land uses in UK
Wenyao Gan
Implementing optimality theory in JULES
Heidi Llanwarne
Spatial variations of the urban boundary layer – What are the feedbacks from anthropogenic heat fluxes?
Alexander Kuhn-Regnier
Predicting the ecological impacts of future fire activity on a global scale (also at Imperial College London)
Giulia Mengoli
Development of mathematical models to predict vegetation response to climate change (also at Imperial College London)
Phiala Mehring
Get your water out of my lounge
Luke Sweeney
The impact of anthropogenic land-use changes on fire regimes during the Holocene

Who 3: recent PhD alumni
Ahmed Al-Arazah
Monitoring and modelling of drought in Iraq (awarded 2017)
Dagmawi Teklu Asfaw (now at the University of Bristol); Papers: Google Scholar
Combining multiple streams of environmental dataset to decision support tools for a maize-based system in sub-Saharan Africa (viva 2019)
Lewis Blunn (now at the University of Reading)
Characterising mixing and pollution transport in the urban boundary layer (viva 2021)
Renato Braghiere (now at California Institute of Technology, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA); Papers: Google Scholar
Improving short wave radiative transfer for vegetation in land surface models (viva 2017)
Noel Clancy
Impacts of air pollutants on vegetation, carbon dioxide and climate (viva 2023)
Elizabeth Cooper (now at UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH)); Papers: Google Scholar
Improving flood prediction using data assimilation (awarded 2019)
Amsalework Ejigu
Ensemble generation in land surface models for soil moisture data assimilation (viva 2020)
Rebecca Emerton (now at ECMWF); Papers: Google Scholar
Extending the predictability of flood hazard at the global scale (awarded 2019)
Helen Johnson; Papers: Google Scholar
Modelling Black Carbon Deposition in the UK Met Office Land Surface Scheme (based at Met Office; viva 2024)
Benjamin M. Jones
Quantifying and understanding the uptake of plant protection products from soil into plants (viva 2020)
Kirsten Lees
Measuring peatland carbon uptake by remote sensing (awarded 2019)
Andrea Manrique Suñén (now at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center)
Representation of vegetation processes in land surface models (awarded 2016)
William Morrison; Papers: Google Scholar
Urban ground-based thermography (viva 2020)
Catharine Pschenyckyj (now at Northumbria University)
Recent changes in carbon cycling in upland organic soils in response to changing acidity (viva 2018)
Jennifer Price
Remote sensing data to test and constrain a dynamic global vegetation model (awarded 2015)
Beth Saunders; Papers: Google Scholar
Surface fluxes, temperatures and boundary layer evolution at the building greyzone in London (viva 2024)
Meg Stretton
A global perspective on the urban heat island effect (viva 2022)
Azin Howells Wright (now at the University of Reading)
The effect of land surface hydrological process representation on drought prediction (awarded 2020)
Duick Young (now at Meteogroup, Wageningen, the Netherlands)
Representing urban vegetation in weather and climate models (viva 2019)

Who 5: recent other alumni
Hèou Maléki Badjana (now at University of Lome, Togo); Papers: Google Scholar
Fernanda Batista-Silva (visitor from National Institute for Space Research, Brazil)
Victoria Boult (now at University of Reading, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology); Papers: Google Scholar
Joanna Clark (deceased); Papers: Google Scholar
Peter Cook (now at University of Exeter)
Ian Davenport (now at University of Edinburgh)
Arnaud Duranel (consultant to the University); Papers: Google Scholar
Angie Elwin (now at World Animal Protection)
Sebastien Garrigues (visitor from INRA, France); Papers: Google Scholar
Ella Gilbert (now at British Antarctic Survey); Papers: Google Scholar
Thibault Hallouin (now at HYCAR : Hydrosystèmes Continentaux Anthropisés – Ressources, Risques, Restauration & INRAE, France)
Nathanael Harwood (now at London Borough of Waltham Forest); Papers: Google Scholar
Fiona Johnson (visitor from the University of New South Wales, Australia); Papers: Google Scholar
David Kesner (now at Eunomia Research & Consulting)
Chloe Largeron (now at Météo-France); Papers: Google Scholar
Doudou Li (visitor from Beijing Forestry University, China); Papers: Google Scholar
Mathew Lipson (virtual visitor from the University of New South Wales, Australia); Papers: Google Scholar
Will Maslanka (now at King’s College London); Papers: Google Scholar
Arathy Menon (now at the Met Office); Papers: Google Scholar
Omar Müller (now at Universidad Nacional del Litoral & CONICET, Argentina); Papers: Google Scholar
Keisuke Nakao (visitor from the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Japan); Papers: Google Scholar
Rodolfo Nobrega (now at Imperial College London); Papers: Google Scholar
Varun Ojha (now at Newcastle University); Papers: Google Scholar
Pablo Paiewonsky (now at University of Albany and Quantum Risk Analytics)
Ewan Pinnington; Papers: Google Scholar
Suvarna Punalekar (now at Aberystwyth University); Papers: Google Scholar
Ting Sun (now at University College London, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (IRDR)); Papers: Google Scholar
Markus Todt (now at Met Éireann, Ireland, with a virtual visiting position at Univ. Reading)
Rémy Vandaele (now at Univ. Exeter); Papers: Google Scholar
Charlie Williams (now at Univ. Bristol, with a visiting position at Univ. Reading); Papers: Google Scholar
Vadim Yapiyev (visitor from Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan); Papers: Google Scholar