Leadership Team
The Centre is directed by a six-strong Leadership Team of a Director and Associate Directors, covering a wide range of areas of expertise that are crucial for the materialisation of our Centre:
Prof. Colin Prentice
Colin is Chair in Biosphere and Climate Impacts in the Department of Life Sciences. As well as being our Director, and therefore responsible for research coordination across the Centre, he is also supervising several projects relating to impacts and feedback between climate, fire and ecology, particularly from an earth system perspective. Colin is a co-lead of our ‘Fire-Veg Team.’
Email: c.prentice@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Apostolos Voulgarakis
Apostolos is an Associate Professor in Climate Change and Atmospheric Environment in the School of Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Crete. He is also Reader in Atmospheric Physics in the Department of Physics at Imperial, where he founded our Centre. Apostolos is co-lead of our ‘Climate Team’.
Prof. Sandy Harrison
Sandy is Professor in Global Palaeoclimates and Biogeochemical Cycles in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science. She is leading the work on palaeofires at the Centre, focusing on the history of wildfire, vegetation, and climate change, and she a co-lead of our ‘Fire-Veg Team’.
Email: s.p.harrison@reading.ac.uk
Prof. Martin Wooster
Martin is a Professor in Earth Observation Science in the Department of Geography. He is an expert on satellite Earth Observation (EO) and the quantification of landscape fire, including air quality and wildfire emissions. Martin is co-lead of our ‘Air-Health Team’ and our ‘Info System Team’. We are working closely with Martin’s research team – King’s Earth Observation and Wildfire Research Group.
Email: martin.wooster@kcl.ac.uk
Prof. Jay Mistry
Jay Mistry is a Professor of Environmental Geography in the Department of Geography, specialising in political ecology and environmental management in the tropics. She co-lead of the ‘Just Fire’ team in Centre, and is leading our work relating to indigenous and local fire knowledges and practices.
Email: j.mistry@rhul.ac.uk
Prof. David Demeritt
David is a Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography, and an expert in environmental policy and risk governance. He is co-lead of our ‘WIR3 Team’ focusing on wildfire insurance, risk, regulation and recovery.
Email: david.demeritt@kcl.ac.uk
Centre Administration
Dr. Adriana Ford
Adriana’s role is to oversee operational and logistical needs of the Centre, monitor the research progress and impacts, support the development of the research programmes, lead the Centre communications, and build networks and collaborations. She is your first port of call for general queries about the Centre.
Email: a.ford@imperial.ac.uk, adriana.ford@kcl.ac.uk
Sophia Cain
Sophia is based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Reading. Her previous research has focused on fire and plant trait interactions in Australian Ecosystems. She has joined the Centre to work with the Fire-Veg Team and to help facilitate project administration at Reading.
Email: s.l.cain@reading.ac.uk
Research Supervisors
Dr Rossella Arcucci
Rosella is a Research Fellow in the Data Science Institute in the Department of Computing. She will be leading projects that incorporate machine learning algorithms in data assimilation processes in order to improve efficiency and accuracy of wildfire estimations and predictions.
Email: r.arcucci@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Alex Arnall
Alex is Associate Professor in the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, specialising in the study of migration, movement and displacement. He is supervising the PhD project ‘Farmers’ burning practices and conservation in Mozambique.’
Email: a.h.arnall@reading.ac.uk
Dr Enrico Biffis
Enrico is Associate Professor of Actuarial Finance in the Business School. He will be leading projects relating to insurance and fire at the wildland-urban interface.
Email: e.biffis@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Helen Brindley
Helen is Reader in Earth Observation in the Department of Physics. Her work focuses on dust, aerosols and other atmospheric pollution in the global climate system.
Email: h.brindley@imperial.ac.uk
Prof. Majid Ezzati
Majid is Chair in Global Environmental Health in the School of Public Health. He leads the Global Environmental Health research group at Imperial, which includes air pollution and climate, nutrition, disease, and health forecasting and inequalities. At the Centre, Majid will supervise a project on global mapping of human risk from wildfires.
Email: majid.ezzati@imperial.ac.uk
Prof. Robert Fish
Rob is Chair in Environmental Sustainability based in the Centre for Environmental Policy. He is an environmental social scientist with research interests in the social and cultural dimensions of natural resource management. He has a particular specialism in the study of rural and agricultural systems. In the Centre, he is part of the Just Fire Team.
Email: r.fish@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Yiannis Kountouris
Yiannis is Lecturer in Economics and the Environment at the Centre for Environmental Policy. He is an applied economist with interests ranging from political economy and carbon markets through to social capital and well-being. Yiannis is co-lead of our ‘WIR3 Team’ focusing on wildfire insurance, risk, regulation and recovery.
Email: i.kountouris@imperial.ac.uk
Dr James Millington
James is a lecturer in the Department of Geography with expertise in developing bespoke modelling tools to investigate spatial ecological and socio-economic processes and their interaction. He is supervising work on agent-based methods for representing anthropogenic fire in Dynamic Global Vegetation Models. James is a co-lead of our ‘Just Fire Team’.
Email: james.millington@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Morena Mills
Morena is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Social Science in the Centre for Environmental Policy. Her focus is on applied biodiversity conservation research and in improving policy that impacts the persistence of species and people’s wellbeing.
Email: m.mills@imperial.ac.uk
Prof. Guillermo Rein
Guillermo is Professor of Fire Science in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research is centred on heat transfer, combustion and fire, and he leads the research group Imperial Hazelab. He is leading a project at the Centre on thermodynamics of Arctic wildfire and is co-lead of our ‘Climate Team’.
Email: g.rein@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Francesco Restuccia
Francesco is a Senior Lecturer in Engineering in the Department of Engineering where he leads the Heat and Fire Lab. His main areas of interest are: Heat Transfer; Energy; Fire Science; Combustion; and Thermal Management of Electrochemical Devices.
Email: francesco.restuccia@kcl.ac.uk
Prof. Kate Schreckenberg
Kate is Reader in Development Geography in the Department of Geography. Her main interests focus on community-based resource management and equity in the context of ecosystem services. Kate is supervising a project on contested fire management, looking to understand trade-offs between traditional and government approaches to fire management. She is a co-lead of our ‘Just Fire Team’.
Email: kate.schreckenberg@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Emma Tebbs
Emma is Lecturer in Physical Geography and Earth Observation in the Department of Geography. Her expertise and interest lie in the application of Earth observation technology to issues of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. She is supervising a project on the drivers of changing fire dynamics in Ethiopia’s drylands and the impacts on ecosystem services.
Email: emma.tebbs@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Varyl Thorndycraft
Varyl is a Senior Lecturer and geomorphologist with research expertise in Late Quaternary palaeohydrology.
Dr Jeremy Woods
Jem is Reader in Sustainable Development in the Centre for Environmental Policy. His work focuses on the interplay between development, land-use and the sustainable use of natural resources, and links environmental impact, techno-economic and sustainability assessment frameworks.
Email: jeremy.woods@imperial.ac.uk
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr Irini Boleti
Irini is a Postdoctoral researcher in the Technical University of Crete in the group of Atmospheric Environment and Climate Change. She is a physicist with a specialization in atmospheric and climate physics and a PhD in statistical modelling of air pollution. As part of the Centre, Irini is working on understanding the interaction between wildfires and climate, with a focus on high-latitude fires. Read more…
Email: eboleti@tuc.gr
Dr Giuseppe Brandi
Dr. Iulian Alin Rosu
Alin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment and Climate Change of the Technical University of Crete in Greece. His research involves employing earth system models to study the global and local effects of the Canadian wildfire emissions of 2023, and of developing novel methods of quantifying and modelling wildfires through fractal theory.
Email: irosu@tuc.gr
Dr Jose Gomez-Dans
Jose is a postdoctoral researcher in Earth Observation and Landscape Fire Science, in the Department of Geography. He is is interested in fundamental modelling to understand the EO signal, developing capabilities to blend observations from different sensors and models, and Bayesian methods for data assimilation. In the Centre he works with satellite data from geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites and will implement simulations from models to simulate the impact of landscape fires on Earth’s atmosphere. Jose is co-lead of our ‘Info System Team’.
Email: jose.gomez-dans@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Manolis Grillakis
Manolis is a postdoctoral research engineer at Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas in Greece, working on climate change impacts on hydrological processes. In collaboration with Prof. Apostolos Voulgarakis, he aims to contribute to the understanding of drought effects on wildfires. Read more
Email: grillakis@hydrogaia.gr
Dr Mark Grosvenor
Mark is a Research Associate in the Department of Geography. His research is focussed on quantification of wildfire emissions in the real-world and from laboratory experiments. His work includes using King’s Wildfire Testing Chamber facility to measure emissions data from different biomass and to optimise sensors for use in the field. Mark is co-lead of our ‘Air-Health Team’. Read more
Email: mark.grosvenor@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Olivia Haas
Olivia is based a Research Associate in Fire-Vegetation Modelling. She co-leads the ‘Fire-Veg Giraffe Team’ of the Centre focusing on modelling fire-vegetation interactions. Before joining Reading, she completed her PhD with us, exploring the impact of CO2 on fire regimes and ecosystems in rapid warming events. Read more about her PhD and read more about her post-doctoral research…
Email: o.m.haas@reading.ac.uk
Dr Will Hayes
Will is a Research Associate in the Department of Geography, with a background in conservation ecology and community development. His research focuses on governance structures surrounding fire use in Guyana and the role of Indigenous fire practices in savannah ecosystems. This research aims to inform and advocate for fire management policies in Guyana that prioritise Indigenous leadership and knowledge. In addition, Will’s research in Ireland explores how governance structures affect farmers’ land management decisions, particularly regarding burning practices. Read more…
Email: william.hayes@rhul.ac.uk
Dr Matt Kasoar
Matt is a Research Associate in Earth Systems Modelling in the Department of Physics and a co-lead of the ‘Climate Team’ in the Centre. His research involves using state-of-the-art computer models to help researchers across the Centre understand the impacts of wildfire on the atmosphere and air quality, and predict how fire regimes may evolve under a changing climate. Read more
Email:m.kasoar12@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Will Maslanka
Will is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography. His previous remote sensing research has involved quantifying microwave emissions from the natural snowpack, and analysing surface soil moisture patterns for Natural Flood Management. Will is currently investigating the quantification of agricultural fire emissions from Arctic wildfires.
Email: william.maslanka@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Hafizha Mulyasih
Hafizha (Afi) is a Research Associate at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. She has research experience on the smouldering of tropical peat fires and how to extinguish them for prevention and mitigation efforts. In her new role, she is working with Prof. Guillermo Rein and Imperial Hazelab research group to experimentally study the behaviour of smouldering wildfires in the Artic. Read more here.
Email: a.mulyasih21@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Ramesh Ningthoujam
Ramesh is a Research Associate in Wildfire Taxonomy in the Department of Life Sciences. His research expertise is in applying Earth Observation data to physical models. Ramesh is using multi-temporal, high-resolution optical and radar satellite data to develop a global taxonomy of wildfire and its controls. Read more
Email: r.ningthoujam@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Oliver Perkins
Ol is based in the Department of Geography. Having completed their PhD at the Centre, developing the first agent-based model of anthropogenic wildfire applicable at a global scale (read more on their PhD here), Ol now works in on investigate how fire use varies globally and is likely to change into the future, considering both climatic changes and potential governance responses.
Email: oliver.perkins@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Kaveh Salehzadeh Nobari
Email: k.salehzadeh-nobari@imperial.ac.uk
Dr David Sandoval Calle
David is postdoctoral researcher in the Life Sciences department at Imperial College, having completed his PhD with the Centre. His main research is focused on understanding how complex terrain affects water and carbon fluxes, and how these fluxes and feedbacks shape ecosystems’ emergent functioning and services. At the Centre, he will be contributing with the development of a fire’s rate of spread model. With a background in environmental sciences and tropical ecology his research interests comprise ecophysiology, ecohydrology, remote sensing and land surface modelling. Read more
Email: d.sandoval17@imperial.ac.uk, Supervision: Colin Prentice , Guillermo Rein
Dr Dharma Sapkota
Dharma is a Research Associate in Fire Ecology at the Department of Life Sciences based at Silwood Park Campus. He has previously researched the impact of fire and the post-fire recovery of tropical and subtropical plant biodiversity. He works with Professor Colin Prentice at ICL and with the fire-vegetation interaction working group led by Professor Sandy Harrison at the University of Reading. His role is to develop new models representing the connections between fire characteristics and plant adaptation to fire. Read more…
Email: d.sapkota@imperial.ac.uk
Mr Konstantinos Seiradakis
Kostas is based in the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. He uses his extensive experience as a research engineer, including in the analysis, design, configuration and implementation of GIS, to provide technical support in the Centre, with the aim of designing and structuring a platform to facilitate the research of the TUC team.
Dr Hamed Shariatmadar
Hamed is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography within the KCL EO and Wildfires Research Group. He has expertise in a diverse array of ex-situ and in-situ atmospheric sampling techniques, including utilising both ground and airborne systems, such as CH4 and VLW HyperCams and Telops HyperCams. Hamed employs these advanced technologies to detect and quantify a spectrum of species, and he helps design and implement versatile sampling kits capable of measuring concentrations of gases, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and particulates. Read more…
Email: hamed.shariatmadar@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Cathy Smith
Cathy is a Research Associate in Indigenous and Local Knowledges in the Department of Geography. She has an interdisciplinary background in ecology and human geography, and her research previously has focused on the political ecology of wildfire in Belize’s coastal savannas since 1920, and community-based fire management in Belize. In the Centre, she is working on two projects – firstly, a global analysis of fire practices within smallholder and subsistence-oriented livelihoods, and secondly, crofting fire use in Scotland.
Email: C.Smith@rhul.ac.uk
Dr Maximilian Stiefel
Max is based at the Department of Geography. He first joined the Centre as a visiting research student from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Max is working with Dr. David Demeritt on natural language processing of natural hazard mitigation plans to construct a dataset for analyzing the effectiveness of wildfire prevention strategies. His broader research interests are in climate risk modeling.
Email: maximilian.stiefel@kcl.ac.uk
PhD Students
Katie Blackford
Katie is based in the Department of Physics. Her research interests are on the relationships between fire, climate, and ecosystems in the Earth system. Her PhD will focus specifically on the role of peat fires in shaping future atmospheric composition, the carbon cycle and climate. Katie aims to build a peat fire capability into the UKESM, in collaboration with the Met Office, to simulate future changes in peat fires and their impacts. Read more
Email: k.blackford19@imperial.ac.uk Supervision: Apostolos Voulgarakis, Chantelle Burton (Met Office Hadley Centre) and Colin Prentice
Abi Croker
Abi is based in the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. Her research explores whether community-based fire management (CBFiM) is an extension of the colonial narrative in an East and Southern African savanna context, or whether it provides an alternative and realizable equitable, effective, and sustainable ‘bottom-up’ fire management framework. Abi’s PhD is funded by Imperial College’s Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet DTP and she is part of their Transition to Zero Pollution Initiative. Read more
Email: a.croker20@imperial.ac.uk Supervision: Yiannis Kountouris, Jem Woods
Sophie de Pauw
Sophie is interested in understanding how humans interact with their environment and the downstream ecological consequences. Her PhD looks at how local communities manage their natural resources in relation to fire in the Niassa Nature Reserve, Northern Mozambique. She is studying the spatio-temporal patterns of burning, as well as the motivations behind the use of anthropogenic fire. By understanding how, when, and why indigenous people use burning to support their livelihood activities, the hope is to better integrate their needs into conservation frameworks. Read more
Email: s.depauw@pgr.reading.ac.uk Supervision: Alex Arnall, Jem Woods and Morena Mills
Michaela Flegrova
Michaela is based in the Department of Physics. Her PhD aims to help quantify the radiative impact of African landscape fires, to help us evaluate both the immediate as well as long-term effects.
Email: michaela.flegrova16@imperial.ac.uk Supervision: Helen Brindley, Martin Wooster
Daniel Gallagher
Daniel is based in the Department of Geography. His PhD aims to increase our understanding of the complex interactions between climate, ecological processes and human impact in the tropics. With a particular focus in Guyana, new high-resolution pollen and charcoal series, as well as Indigenous knowledge on the use of fire, will provide an understanding into the processes driving long-term tropical ecosystem dynamics. This will be complemented by further analysis on the limited number of existing records available. Read more
Email: Daniel.Gallagher.2016@live.rhul.ac.uk Supervision: Daniele Colombaroli, Jay Mistry and Sandy Harrison
Angel Goldsmith
Angel is based in the Department of Geography. His PhD aims to develop an integrated wildfire risk-based mitigation model through policy, organizational structures and public perception of wildfires in the wildland-urban interface areas in South Africa. Read more…
Email: angel.goldsmith@kcl.ac.uk Supervision: David Demeritt and Adriana Ford
Sophy Greenhalgh
Sophy is based in the Centre for Environmental Policy. Her research is centred on wildfire emerging threats to the UK. She will focus on wildfire policy interventions, exploring attitudes and preferences to wildfire risk mitigation and adaptation measures from wildfire stakeholders and the UK public. Read more…
Supervision: Yiannis Kountouris; Email: s.greenhalgh24@imperial.ac.uk
Chris Ho
Chris is based in the Global Environmental Health research group at the School of Public Health, having joined the Centre in Sept. 2024. His PhD focusses on the public health risks of wildfires in Africa, investigating spatial patterns of exposure, vulnerability, and health inequalities. Read more…
Email: c.ho24@imperial.ac.uk, Supervisors: Majid Ezzati and Sandy Harrison
Nikolaos Kalogeropoulos
Nick is part of the Hazelab research group at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His PhD focuses on creating mathematical models and programs to simulate forest fire propagation near inhabited communities, working for the WUI-NITY project. Simulating forest fires allows us to make better plans for emergency response and evacuation. His work also focuses on calculating safety boundaries around WUI areas to act as evacuation trigger points, and provide a more accurate, fast, and reliable tool for emergency response and long-term planning.
E-mail: nk1017@imperial.ac.uk Supervision: Guillermo Rein, Yannis Kountouris
Theodore Keeping
Theodore is based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science. His PhD research is focussed on the development of a probabilistic global wildfire model related to the spread of near future climate projections. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop a practically useful wildfire hazard model. He has particular research interests in the effects of human, meteorological and ecological factors on wildfire risk, and in the quantification of near-term climate impacts. Read more
Email: t.r.keeping@pgr.reading.ac.uk, Supervision: Sandy Harrison, Colin Prentice, Ted Shepherd (Reading) and Ioana Dima-West (AXA XL)
Jake Lever
Jake is based in the Data Science Institute, supported by the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment, and the Department of Life Sciences. His PhD project focusses on using machine learning algorithms in data assimilation processes to improve the efficiency and accuracy of wildfire predictions, and social sentiment analysis towards wildfires. Read more
Email: j.lever20@imperial.ac.uk, Supervision: Rossella Arcucci and Colin Prentice
Zitong Li
Zitong is based in in the Department of Geography. Her PhD is focused on the use of AI and Earth Observation in quantifying plume of emissions from Landscape Fire. Read more…
Email: zitong.li@kcl.ac.uk Supervision: Martin Wooster
Connor MacKenzie
Connor is based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science. He is exploring the complex relationship between vegetation traits and wildfire behaviour on a global scale. His work will examine how different types of vegetation influence fire patterns and, conversely, how wildfires impact the structure and composition of ecosystems. Read more…
Supervision: Sandy Harrison and Olivia Haas
Alex Mines
Alex is based in the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. His PhD research identifies and analyses political and financial challenges North American insurance markets and regional stakeholders face when mitigating and adapting to the impacts of wildfires. The project aims to provide comparative, interstate analysis of identified challenges to develop holistically sustainable insurance outcomes for communities and markets.
Email: alex.mines23@imperial.ac.uk
Supervision: Yiannis Kountouris, David Demeritt
Haleema Misal
Haleema is based in the Centre for Environmental Policy. Her PhD project focuses on quantifying and monetizing the wildfire impact on human welfare, focusing ecosystem services provision, productivity, health and social capital. Read more
Email: h.misal18@imperial.ac.uk, Supervisors: Ioannis Kountouris, Apostolos Voulgarakis and David Demeritt
Monika Moreu-Vicente
Monika is based in the Department of Geography. Her PhD research aims to use interdisciplinary approaches such as participatory methods and vegetation/fire modelling to explore future fire regimes and narratives in southern Europe. Read more…
Email: monika.moreu_vicente@kcl.ac.uk
Supervision: James Millington and Kate Schrekenberg
Rafaila-Nikola Mourgela
Rafaila is based in the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. Her PhD focuses on the wildfire impacts on atmospheric composition and climate change. Specifically, during her PhD, she will study the effect of wildfire emissions on a global scale from the pre-industrial period to the present day and the future, using earth system models. Her research is funded by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I). Read more…
Email: rmourgela@tuc.gr
Supervision: Apostolos Voulgarakis
Amos Chege Muthiuru
Chege is based at Department of Geography at King’s College London. His PhD project aims to identify wildfire ignition patterns, map burnt areas and identify spatial temporal patterns and how they interact with large mammals to shape habitats, influencing human interaction in changing climate across key Kenya’s protected areas. Read more…
Email: amos.muthiuru@kcl.ac.uk
Supervision: James Millington, Emma Tebbs, Kristofer Chan
Farrer Owsley-Brown
Farrer is in the King’s Earth Observation and Wildfire research group. His research explores how the use of multi- and hyper-spectral laboratory and airborne remote sensing in characterising landscape fire properties can improve emissions estimates. In August 2023 he helped to lead an ESA-funded airborne campaign over Canadian wildfires. Farrer’s PhD is funded by the National Productivity Investment Fund and delivered through the London NERC DTP. Read more
Email: farrer.owsley-brown@kcl.ac.uk, Supervision: Martin Wooster, Rob Francis
Erika Piroli
Erika is based in the Centre for Environmental Policy. Her PhD investigates the human drivers of wildfire, focusing on the influence on incentives – how officials’ and politicians’ reflection and promotion incentives determine wildfire occurrence, and how incentives generated by international, jurisdictional, and ethnic borders impact wildfire. Read more
Email: e.piroli20@imperial.ac.uk, Supervision: Yiannis Kountouris
Abdullah Rehman
Abdullah is based in the Department of Engineering, based in the Heat and Fire Lab. Joining the group in Oct 2024, he is studying the impact of wildfires on wildland urban interfaces and urban infrastructure. Read more
Imogen Richards
Imogen is based in the Department of Engineering. The aim of her research is to understand the fundamental dynamics causing fire spread mechanism for wood in various environmental and ambient conditions, including effects of moisture, wind and fuel type.
Email: imogen.richards@kcl.ac.uk, Supervision: Francesco Restuccia
Luke Richardson-Foulger
Luke is a member of the King’s Earth Observation and Wildfire Research Group. His research primarily focuses on the measurement of emissions from peatland and soil wildfires, and how they relate to ecosystem properties. By developing and refining hyperspectral remote sensing techniques, his PhD seeks to understand how peatland and soil wildfires affect the climate and human health. Read more…
Email: luke.richardson-foulger@kcl.ac.uk
Supervision: Martin Wooster, Simon Lewis, Daniel Schillereff.
Yicheng Shen
Yicheng is a PhD student based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science. Her project focuses on the relationships between fire and fire-related plant traits (e.g. resprouting), with the ultimate goal to develop a theoretical basis for predicting fire regimes and develop a simple fire model incorporating plant controls on traits in fire-adapted vegetation. Yicheng’s project is funded by LEMONTREE. Read more here
Email: yicheng.shen@pgr.reading.ac.uk; Supervision: Sandy Harrison, Colin Prentice
Rahinatu Sidiki Alare
Rahina is based in the Department of Geography. Her PhD, which is funded through ESRC LISS-DTP, will explore the trade-offs between traditional and government approaches to fire management in the savannah woodlands of northern Ghana. Read more
Email: rahinatu.sidiki_alare@kcl.ac.uk, Supervision: Kate Schreckenberg
Dimitra Tarasi
Dimitra is based in the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at TUC. Her PhD (funded by AXA) investigates how the present-day atmosphere is influenced by fire emissions from boreal forests and peatlands and explores how the future of the climate system will be impacted by the changing wildfire regimes at high northern latitudes.. Read more…
Email: dtarasi@isc.tuc.gr
Supervision: Apostolos Voulgarakis
João Teixeira
João is based both at the Met Office and University of Exeter. During his PhD (funded by the Met Office) he will work towards the development and application of a fully coupled fire-composition-climate Earth system model to quantify the impacts of fire variability on atmospheric composition-climate interactions in present and future worlds. Read more
Email: joao.teixeira@metoffice.gov.uk or jt564@exeter.ac.uk Supervision: Fiona O’Connor, Richard Betts and Apostolos Voulgarakis
Henry Thompson
Henry is based in the Department of Geography. His research project investigates changing fire dynamics in Ethiopia, the drivers of these changes and the consequences for local communities. The project aims to incorporate satellite remote sensing and participatory methods and contribute to the advancement of a wider model of human-climate-fire interaction. Read more
Email: henry.j.thompson@kcl.ac.uk Supervision: Emma Tebbs, Kate Schreckenberg
Viera Ukropcova
Viera is based in the Department of Geography. Using agent-based modelling, her PhD aims to understand how companies and financial institutions impact deforestation and forest fire regimes in the tropics and if their strategies could contribute to a 1.5°C world. Read more
Email: viera.ukropcova@kcl.ac.uk
Supervision: James Millington, David Demeritt
Michel Valette
Michel is based in the Centre for Environmental Policy. His PhD project investigates drivers of fire regimes in the Brazilian Amazon using an interdisciplinary approach. He focuses on the impact of changing forest governance and initiatives to reduce deforestation in the region. Read more
Email: m.valette20@imperial.ac.uk, Supervision: Morena Mills, Jem Woods, Yiannis Kountouris
Luke Sweeney
Luke is based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science. His PhD will look at the impact of anthropogenic land-use changes on fire regimes during the Holocene, using population and land-use reconstructions with charcoal-based records of palaeofires. Read more
Email: l.sweeney@pgr.reading.ac.uk, Supervision: Sandy Harrison, Colin Prentice, Marc Vander Linden
Kapil Yadav
Kapil is based in the Department of Geography. With a background in community-based natural resource management, his PhD focuses on contested fire management and understanding trade-offs between traditional and government approaches to fire management. Read more
Email: kapil.yadav@kcl.ac.uk Supervision: Kate Schreckenberg
Toby Wainwright
Toby is based in the Department of Geography in the Earth Observation and Wildfire research group. His research focuses on quantifying the air quality impacts of agricultural biomass burning in the upper ASEAN region and using ground-truth PM2.5 observations to validate air quality and smoke forecasts made by global and regional atmospheric models. Read more here
Email: toby.wainwright@kcl.ac.uk Supervision: Martin Wooster
Advisory board
Past Members
Dr Adedayo Adedeji
Adedayo is a former postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography. His research involved optimizing fire emission datasets and exploring the potential of developing trace gas emissions data from wildfires leveraging on satellites and ground observations. He was also assessing the air quality impact of wildfires by adding the optimized fire emissions data into atmospheric models such as GEOS-Chem. The research aimed to help fill the research gap in modelling ozone formation from wildfires
Email: adedayo.adedeji@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Sibo Cheng
Sibo is a former postdoctoral researcher at the Data Science Institute. His research aimed to improve numerical wildfire forecasting accuracy by combining data assimilation/machine learning algorithms and reduced-order modelling techniques. Read more
Dr Daniele Colombaroli
Daniele was a Lecturer in Physical Geography in the Department of Geography. His research lay at the interface between biogeography, palaeoecology and conservation biology, and he co-supervised several wildfire projects at the Centre. Daniele was a highly respected and much-liked colleague who is sorely missed. Read more about Daniele here.
Dr Kayla De Freitas
Kayla is based in the Department of Geography. Her research experience is in community conservation, sustainable development planning and eco-tourism, predominantly in her home country of Guyana. Her PhD is investigating changing fire management practices of the Indigenous people living in and around the Kanuku Mountains Protected Area in southern Guyana. Kayla is interested in an inter-disciplinary approach to understanding the different attitudes towards fire among various groups, what management policies and practices exist among them and how this impacts the landscape. Read more
Email: kayla.defreitas.2019@live.rhul.ac.uk Supervision: Jay Mistry, Daniel Colombaroli and Martin Wooster
Dr Vissia Didin Ardiyani
Vissia is a former PhD student in the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine. Her PhD focused on investigating an alteration of pregnancy related birth weight in pregnant women exposed by toxic air during peat fires in Indonesia. It involved assessing the impact of outdoor on indoor air quality in different house characteristics and on personal exposure of pregnant women during peat fires. Her background is in environmental health epidemiology, and she is funded by Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP).
Supervision: Martin Wooster
Dr Simona Dossi
Simona is a former PhD based in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, in the Hazelab research group. Her PhD, which is funded by PyroLife, analysed vulnerabilities to wildfires in rural Mediterranean houses. Through computer modelling and laboratory experiments, Simona’s research aimed to identify and quantify the associated wildfire ignition risk to common house features, building materials, and surrounding conditions. Read more
Supervision: Guillermo Rein
David Kesner
David is a former MRes student based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science. His research sought to understand vegetation responses to fire during glacial and interglacial states. In particular, he looked at feedbacks between fire and vegetation on a regional scale and how these may be influenced by climate changes associated with glacial/interglacial cycles. This involved combining data from the Global Charcoal Database and pollen records of vegetation change. Read more
Supervision: Sandy Harrison and Colin Prentice
Dr Alex Kuhn-Regnier
Alex is a former PhD student based in the Department of Physics, who graduated in 2023. His primary research interest was to investigate wildfire models and to improve their capacity to represent the ecological impacts of future wildfire changes. He was also interested in investigating whether controls on wildfire vary regionally, and how this is represented by different fire models. Read more
Supervision: Apostolos Voulgarakis
Dr Paul Lincoln
Paul is a former postdoctoral researcher who was based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, working with Prof Sandy Harrison. His role encompassed providing palaeo-expertise on past fire histories and investigating potential drivers of palaeowildfires. He also updated and maintains the Reading Palaeofire Database (RPD) and provided palaeodata that can be implemented into future models. Read more about his project here. Paul moved on to a new research role at RHUL.
Dr Yanan Liu
Yanan is a former PhD student in Department of Geography, which she completed in 2023. Her PhD topic was investigating impact of smoke pollution from wildfire burning on migratory insects, focusing on exploring the flight ability changes of migratory insects affected by smoke pollution. Read more
Supervision: Martin Wooster
Dr Hannah Nguyen
Hannah is former Research Associate in the Department of Geography. Her research was focused on the development of long-term fire emissions records using geostationary satellite fire products. Her work also included using tailored fire emissions datasets in regional chemical transport modelling to produce Air Quality simulations to accompany health studies investigating the effects of fire-related haze events, and to be used in fire emission inventory validation. Read more
Dr Anastasios Rovithakis
Anastasios is a former PhD student based in the School of Environmental Engineering. In his PhD he assessed forest fire risk due to future global warming over the Mediterranean region through the use of the FWI climate index. Read more
Supervision: Apostolos Voulgarakis
Dr Muhammad Agung Santoso
Agung is a former postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He was working with Prof. Guillermo Rein and Imperial Hazelab research group to experimentally study the smouldering dynamics of peat fire in the Arctic.
Dr Enoch Tsui
Enoch is a former PhD student based at the Department of Physics in the Space and Atmospheric Physics Group. His research project looked into an observed correlation between tropical cyclones and wildfires occurring to the south of the region with active tropical storms. Using a combination of climate modelling techniques and observed data, he aimed to understand the relationship between hurricanes and favourable atmospheric conditions for wildfires in the Amazon and California. Read more
Supervision: Ralf Toumi
Prof. Ralf Toumi
Ralf is Professor of Atmospheric Physics, and was Head of the Space and Atmospheric Physics Group from 2014-2020. Since 2020 he is Co-director of the Grantham Institute (Environment and Climate Change). His research focuses on extreme events, particularly tropical cyclones. From 2000-2024 he supervised a project in the Centre on the correlation between tropical cyclones and wildfires in the Amazon and California.
Email: r.toumi@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Li Wang
Li is a former Research Associate in the Department of Geography. His research expertise is in the regulation and reduction of social and natural risks. In collaboration with Prof. David Demeritt, he employed both qualitative and quantitative methods to describe and explain local diversities and effectiveness of agricultural burning regulation in China.
Email: li.3.wang@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Chris Wells
Chris is a former PhD student who was based in the Department of Physics in the Space and Atmospheric Physics group. His NERC-funded PhD research studied how changing emissions from the tropics, including fire emissions from Africa, influence local and remote climates and health. He used the UKESM global climate model, based at the Met Office, to do this. Read more
Supervision: Apostolos Voulgarakis, Majid Ezzati
Ingrid Vigna
Ingrid was based in the Department of Geography as a visiting student from Urban and Regional Development at the Polytechnic of Turin – University of Turin. Her research focused on community-based management strategies for wildfire risk prevention, with a case study in the Alpine valley in Italy. The aim of the research was to develop an integrated fuel management strategy, economically sustainable and directly involving the local population. Visiting: 2021, Supervision: James Millington
Prof. Arun Agrawal
Arun served on our Advisory Board from 2019-2023.
Prof. John Pyle FRS
John was previously part of our Advisory Board, from 2019-2024.
Prof. Stephen Pyne
Stephen served on our Advisory Board from 2019-2023.
