Biography

Jonathan Pearson is an Associate-Professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick.

He has over 20 years experience of research in the field of coastal and environmental hydraulics, having previously worked at the Universities of Edinburgh and Sheffield.

He has been funded to undertake research studies at major European research laboratory facilities at HR Wallingford, DHI & UPC; has fundamental research funded by EPSRC, NERC, BBSRC & the EU, with applied research supported by Unilever, Syngenta & the Coal Authority.

Publications are best viewed here

Education / Qualifications

• 1999 Ph.D - 'Mixing due to the effects of waves', University of Sheffield, UK
• 1992 1st Class Honours Degree Civil & Structural Engineering, B.Eng (Hons), University of Sheffield, UK

Appointments held

• 2020 - Reader, School of Engineering, University of Warwick
• 2012 - 2020 Associate Professor, School of Engineering, University of Warwick
• 2007 - 2012 Assistant Professor, School of Engineering, University of Warwick
• 2005 - 2006 Research Fellow, School of Engineering, University of Warwick
• 1999 - 2004 Research Fellow, School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh
• 1993 - 1998 Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil & Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield
• 1992 - 1993 Graduate Engineer, Bullen Consultants, Merseyside

Research Interests

Dr Pearson's research has 2 major themes:

1) Resilient infrastructure from natural hazards

Current funded research include; a British Council funded award entitled “Mitigating the effects of climate change: Disaster Management and Emergency Response to flooding” and a Royal Academy of Engineering / The Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship entitled “Coastal flood risks under extreme events: Creating resilience through retrofitting”, which is in collaboration with HR Wallingford. The project will specifically investigate the effects of climate change (e.g. combined effects of sea level rise and extreme climatic events) to on a range of coastal defence configurations, where gaps in knowledge are known to exist.

2) Environmental fate of Organic pollutants

Recently completed work includes a EPSRC/NERC award entitled "PATHWAYS and evolution of pollutants: Interactions between physical controlling effects, microbial community composition and pollutant biodegradation”; and a BBSRC award entitled “Identifying, developing and embedding citizen science techniques in action research to evaluate locally led solutions for water quality monitoring”, other awared include; a NERC/Unilever project investigating the effect of bed-form characteristics on the diversity and pollutant degrading potential of microbial communities inhabiting biofilms at the sediment surface, and the way in which direct discharge scenarios affect interactions between bed-form, microbial community composition and pollutant biodegradation rates. The results of a EPSRC/Unilever funded project to improve our understanding of chemical exchanges between the water column and fixed bed sediments in freshwaters, has recently been published.

Teaching Interests

• Third year MEng/BEng - ES3D5 Water Engineering for Civil Engineers (15.0 CATS shared module)
• Fourth year MEng/BEng - ES4D6 River Mixing (15.0 CATS shared module)
• Fourth year MEng/BEng - ES4A2 African Field Course (15.0 CATS shared module)
• Fourth Year MEng - ES410 Multidisciplinary Design Group Project

Projects and Grants

Please see (link)