Research Interests and Projects

My research interests are centred on geomagnetism, planetary magnetism, crustal magnetisation, magnetotellurics, geophysical inverse theory, and the dynamics and thermal history of the Earth’s core.

Recently funded research projects include RiftVolc, to improve our understanding of past, present and future volcanism in the Main Ethiopian Rift; SWIGS, Space Weather Impacts on Ground Structures; and Afar Rift Consortium, an inter-disciplinary study of how the Earth’s crust grows at divergent plate boundaries. I also collaborate with DTU Space, Denmark on using geomagnetic, especially low Earth orbit satellite, data to model the flow of liquid iron at the core surface.

My recent and current research students enhance and expand this research with studies of sources and variability of magnetic fields external to the Earth, how best to separate them from the magnetic field generated internally within the Earth, studies of the electric field recorded by British geomagnetic observatories, the resistivity structure of Great Britain and its implications for geomagnetically induced currents, forecasting external magnetic field variations during geomagnetic storm times at the Earth’s surface, measurements of properties of Earth materials at high temperatures and pressures, and investigating rapid dynamics in the Earth’s core from inversions for the flow at the core surface.