Universities are all about wonder and fun, says the distinguished geographer leading Science and Technology at Lancaster
“Wonder and fun is why we do research and why we teach: the excitement of discovery, the personal development, the fun of travelling around the world and working with other people,” says Professor Peter Atkinson, newly arrived to lead Lancaster University’s Faculty of Science and Technology.
“It’s also why students come to university: to expand their minds, to be surprised, and to have a good time.”
“Magic” is another word Peter uses repeatedly: to describe the techniques he uses in his research, and the alchemy that happens when you work with others, especially across national and disciplinary boundaries. It is these international connections, already strong at Lancaster, that Peter wants to develop further.
“International collaboration has a magic about it that lifts the quality of research: the different perspectives and experience from minds across different nations”.
The trick, Peter explains, is to maintain Lancaster’s position as a UK top ten university, while increasing the intensity and quality of its excellent research even further, and expanding all international and external facing activities including collaboration with business.
“In order to succeed at these kind of objectives we have to work as a team. I’ve noticed Lancaster is very good at that.”
“Of course you have to allow for individuality as well, you can’t stand behind Van Gogh and say make another painting, you have to let academics do their thing. It’s about trust and respect - on the one hand providing a clear framework with clarity of expectations and on the other the freedom to explore.”
It may seem unusual for a geographer to be leading a Faculty that ranges from psychology, through the natural sciences to mathematics, computing and engineering.
But Peter’s research interests are also wide ranging, and rely heavily on statistical methods and computing techniques. He has published around 200 scientific papers in international journals and sits on the editorial boards of a raft of journals including Geographical Analysis, Spatial Statistics, the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, and Environmental Informatics.
“Lancaster University has a very strong reputation in spatial statistics, and the creation of the Lancaster Environment Centre as a mega-institute, bringing together the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and two departments, is very exciting. So it’s a natural place for me to come,” said Peter, formerly Head of the School of Geography at the University of Southampton.
Much of his work involves remote sensors: images and information captured at a distance, usually from satellites and high flying aircraft.
He’s working with former colleagues on a research project using remote sensors to monitor the growth of vegetation over time worldwide. The aim is to discover how the timing of spring and autumn are changing, and to evaluate whether climate change is driving these changes. “Spring is changing because of our impact on the planet, and that’s pretty profound.”
He is just starting a related project in China, collaborating with Dr Alan Blackburn from the Lancaster Environment Centre, downscaling images taken from space to focus on areas small enough to help individual farmers forecast their crop yield.
The challenge is that, at so low a resolution, there is very little information to make up the image. “One pixel might cover one kilometre. That’s a big area. What we are trying to do is to zoom in without any new information, making the image recognisable by using statistical techniques. It sounds like magic - and it is.”
Other areas of Peter’s research focus on risk: using remote sensors and spatial regression to map the risk of insect-borne diseases such as malaria and sleeping sickness, which will help medical professionals target resources where the need is greatest. Or working in a team which is modelling the trajectory of asteroids around the Earth and evaluating when and where they will hit the Earth and the level of uncertainty involved.
What about the students: how much of his focus as Dean will be spent on ensuring students are well catered for at Lancaster?
“For me, the distinction between research and teaching is blurred – they are both part of the same process focused on wonder, the excitement of discovery and personal development – and what is the point of discovering new things if you aren’t excited to tell others about them?”
“I did an MBA recently at Southampton so I was a student myself after a long break from formal education and it changed my perspective. Anything that is not quite right stands out when you are a student.
“It brought into sharp focus the importance of really attending to students’ needs and of getting the experience right. We should not be satisfied with meeting student expectations, but should strive, where possible, to exceed them.”