The current rapid growth
of the Department has continued over the past year. To put this in context,
since the mid 1990s, the number of teaching staff and research fellows has grown
from 30 to 45, and there has been a 25% increase in accommodation. To add to
this, we have just heard that we have been awarded a £2.4m grant from the
Science Research Infrastructure Fund (SRIF) which will facilitate another major
expansion of accommodation in the Sir William Hardy Building. In a similar vein,
the volume of research has also burgeoned. In the last five years, approaching a
thousand publications written by staff, research fellows and graduate students
have appeared as authored books, in journals, edited books and conference
proceedings, double that of the first half of the nineties. Our research grant
income has also doubled over the same period to over £6.5m.
Since the 1999 Report, there have been several staff changes. On the debit
side, we were all saddened by the death of Dr J.M. Grove on 17 January 2001.
Jean was part of the Cambridge Department for over 50 years. She combined major
work on glaciers and climate change in her The Little Ice Age (1988),
with the demands of raising six children. Our sympathies are extended to
Jean’s family and especially to her husband, Dick, who was a University
Lecturer here for a generation. A memorial service was held at Girton College in
April 2001.
Other moves include Dr C. Tzedakis of the Department’s Quaternary
Science group who joined Professor Stuart Lane at Leeds, and Dr S. Corbridge who
accepted a Professorship at the London School of Economics.
On the credit side, five new members of staff took up their posts during
2000. Dr James Brasington (University of Bristol) was appointed to a
University Assistant Lectureship. James is a hydrologist whose work with
engineering photogrammetrists has fostered new hydrological applications of
digital and analytical photogrammetry, of high speed digital video imagery, and
of terrain modelling linked to fluid dynamics models. Dr Michael Bravo
(University of Manchester) was appointed to a University Lectureship in the
Department with duties in the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI). This is the
second shared post (the other is Dr Arnold) between Geography and SPRI, and it
reflects the growing links for teaching and research between the two
institutions. In addition to his research on aspects of the cultural geography
and the environment of the Canadian Arctic, Michael works on the history and
philosophy of science. Robert Haining (University of Sheffield) has been
appointed to our new Professorship of Human Geography. Bob’s substantive
interests are in economic geography, urban geography and geographical
information systems. He is currently working on issues of health service
delivery and urban criminology. The former includes a major NHS-funded project
on the targeting and take-up of health visitor services, and collaboration with
Trent Regional Health Authority into links between air pollution and hospital
admissions for respiratory conditions. His work in criminology brings a new
dimension to the Department’s research. Here, Bob has worked for the Home
Office, modelling the location of areas in English cities with high levels of
violent crime, and he is starting a project on youth offending under a Home
Office R&D initiative. Dr Daniel Low-Beer (Senior Consultant at
Roland Berger & Partners, Deutsche Bank) was appointed to a University
Assistant Lectureship. Dan works on the geography of human health. He is
involved especially in World Health Organisation and USAIDS projects on the
demographic impact of HIV in southern Africa. Dr Iris Möller
(Fitzwilliam College) has a Newton Trust College Lectureship based in the
Department. Iris works in the Cambridge Coastal Research Unit on salt marsh
evolution and coastal dynamics.
Our administrative leadership has been extended. Ms Bryony Amesbury has
become part-time administrator of the Faculty of Earth Science and
Geography’s Environmental Systems Science Centre, while Ms Louise Feeney
has become the administrator for the Department and SPRI.
The intellectual base of the Department has also been greatly enriched over
the last year or so by its great success in post-doctoral research fellowship
competitions. Dan Brockington has been a British Academy post-doc Research
Fellow since 1998, working on aspects of agriculture, pastoralism and wildlife
conservation in sub-Saharan African drylands. He is joined by 6 Cambridge Junior
Research Fellows — Dr H. Bulkeley (climate change policy), Dr L. Cameron (the
social and cultural framework of the early British conservation movement), D.
Lambert (slavery in colonial Barbados), Dr S. Luque (volcanology), Dr B. Parry
(impact of commercialisation of genetic materials and intellectual property
rights law), and Dr O Toutoubalina (heavy metal pollution in the Russian
Arctic).
In a similar vein, it is a pleasure to record the continued success of staff
in achieving personal promotions – Ron Martin to a personal Chair, Susan Owens
to a Readership, and Tim-Bayliss-Smith, Tom Spencer and Steve Trudgill to Senior
Lectureships.
A feature of the Department’s work is its growing interdisciplinarity,
and this is leading to a number of major initiatives. Following a General Board
Review, the Department reabsorbed the University’s Unit for Aerial
Photography from October 2000; historically a sub-department of Geography,
Aerial Photography had operated independently since the mid 1970s. The Unit has
been revitalised as a specialist remote sensing facility and retitled Unit for Landscape Modelling. It now
forms a key component of the Faculty of Earth Science and Geography’s
Environmental Systems Science Centre. At the time of writing, the new Professor
of Physical Geography who will help to direct this Centre remains to be
appointed. In human geography, we are delighted that the world-famous History of Population and Social
Studies (CAMPOP), directed by Dr Richard Smith, will be joining us from
October 2001. With the inclusion of CAMPOP, the Department has 6 FBAs, the
highest concentration of any UK Geography Department. Links with SPRI continue
to grow. The Department now provides key administrative and computing support
while, as already noted, the joint appointment of Michael Bravo has also been
made. These links have been further strengthened this year by the assignment of
the University Lectureship held by Dr W.G. Rees (previously Assistant Director
Research in SPRI) to the Department. Gareth is a remote sensing specialist
working on heavy metal pollution problems in the Russian Arctic. He has taught
in the Department’s M.Phil in GIS and Remote Sensing for many years.
At the end of 2000, the Department successfully underwent a General Board
Review of its teaching and research. It is clearly assessment season, for
several of the previous months have been dominated by the preparation of the
Department’s 2001 Research Assessment Exercise return. The Department has
been ranked in the highest category in all previous RAEs, and we hope that we
will achieve this again. We are now awaiting news of the precise form which the
Quality Assurance Agency’s review of teaching in the Department will take
in 2002 or 2003.
Andrew Cliff
Head of Department
April 2001