Professor Daniel Parsons

Summary

Under the leadership of Professor Parsons, the Energy and Environment Institute at the University of Hull has gathered together multidisciplinary team of over 180 researchers over the past four years to conduct impactful research on the global challenges presented by environmental change, anthropogenic impacts and securing a carbon net zero future.

Parsons is the founding director of the EEI, which now has a portfolio of active research grants and projects of over £31M, and hosts four taught MSc programmes as well as being home to the EPSRC-NERC Aura Centre for Doctoral Training in Offshore Wind and Environment, the NERC Panorama Doctoral Training Programme as well as the Leverhulme Doctoral Centre in Water Cultures. Parsons is also part of the leadership team for Aura, which secures knowledge exchange links to industry and business centred on a carbon net zero transition.

Professor Parsons's research interests centre on the interfaces between earth system science, anthropogenic impacts on earth's function and broader sustainability issues, such as renewable energy. He is an active researcher in areas related to fluvial, estuarine, coastal and deep marine sedimentary environments, exploring responses of these systems to climate and environmental change. He has research interests in anthropogenic disturbances to these systems and determining necessary societal adaptations to mitigate the impact of change - for example understanding how evolving flood risk on large mega-deltas can impact populations and related regional and global food security - through to understanding the impact of plastics, particularly in coastal and marine environments.

Professor Parsons also has research interests in environmental scale modelling, and the development of innovative environmental measurement technologies and has interests in areas related to offshore renewable energy.