My research career began with a PhD work on control of phytoplankton blooms in Thames Valley Reservoirs. From there I carried out postdoctoral work modelling oxygen deficits in the Medway Estuary, UK, studying impacts of eutrophication in the Great Lakes, Canada, and quantifying the utility of nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria as fertilizers of Bangladesh Rice fields. Subsequently I studied for a PGCE at Cambridge University and taught for a number of years. I resumed my research career at Bristol University focusing on the role of benthic microbial biofilms in mudflat sediment stabilization; this work contributing to an impact assessment of building the Severn Barrage. I obtained a lectureship at Bristol in 1993, and was appointed a Senior Lectureship in 2003.

Aquatic Microbiology and Ecosystem Change