Prof Nick Petford

Prof Nick Petford is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Northampton. Previously Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at Bournemouth University and before that Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Kingston University, Nick has worked in industry (BP) and on academic and commercial research projects throughout the world, most recently as a consultant to DFID (UK) and CONICYT, the National Research Council for Chile. Nick is a former Royal Society University Research Fellow and Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. He has held visiting research appointments at the Universities of Michigan and Vermont (USA) and NASA and is currently visiting professor at Macquarie University (Australia) and the Open University.

Nick is known internationally for his expertise in magmatic systems and volcanology and is a highly cited author with over 250 journal papers, abstracts, book reviews and other articles to his name (some from a brief stint as a journalist at the Times Higher). His research work embraces field investigations and mathematical modelling of the flow of molten rock on earth and other planets, and the mechanical stability of volcanoes. He is currently working with colleagues at NASA on the physics of ice magma. Most recently he has begun research work on the fluid dynamics of blood flow and 3D structure of drainage apparatus in the human eye.

Nick has also contributed to the debate on energy usage and climate change and is currently working on a British Council-funded social enterprise project in the Niger Delta in an effort to reduce child mortality from malaria and on developing new methods for imaging radon tracks for environmental health monitoring.

He has worked on a diverse range of collaborative projects aimed at bridging the so-called art-science gap, and for the last five years has taught on Kingston University's Curating Contemporary Design MA with colleagues from the Design Museum and Wellcome Trust. Nick's contributions to the media on volcanoes include appearances on Sky news, BBC TV and Radio and Richard and Judy. In 2005 the BBC featured the work of his research team in an hour-long documentary Krakatoa Revealed. During the 2010 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano this year he was flown over to front the Channel 4 documentary, The Volcano That Stopped The World.

Nick has served on numerous professional bodies at Board and leadership level. Roles include Council member of the Geological Society, London (2002-2005), Vice President of the Mineralogical Society, Great Britain and Ireland (2002-2004), NERC Peer Review College (2006-2009), South West Science and Industry Council Board (2007-2010) and the Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset Multi Area Agreement (MAA) Board tasked with strategy development for regional economic growth. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society, American Geophysical Union and Associate, Chartered Institute of Marketing. He is a non-Executive Director of Floodstop, a University spin-out company that manufactures and sells flood defence barriers.

Other publications

Selected publications

Wertheim, D, Gillmore, G, Brown, L & Petford, N (2010), A new method of imaging particle tracks in Solid State Nuclear Track Detectors, Journal of Microscopy 237, 1-6.

Thompson, N, Bennett, MR and Petford, N. (2009), Analyses of granular mass movement mechanics and deformation with distinct element numerical modelling: implications for large-scale rock and debris avalanches, Acta Geotechnica, DOI 10.1007/s11440-009-0093-4

Petford, N (2009) Which effective viscosity? Mineralogical Magazine, 73, 167-191.

Petford, N., M. A. Koenders, and S. Turner (2008), Channelized melt flow in downwelling mantle: Implications for 226Ra-210Pb disequilibria in arc magmas, J. Geophys. Res., 113, B11202, doi:10.1029/2007JB005563.