Dr. Sam Harrison

Sam is an environmental modeller with a background in quantum physics. His research centres on aquatic and terrestrial contaminants such as microplastics, nanomaterials, pharmaceuticals and metals and, more specifically, creating geospatial models of their fate, speciation and bio-uptake. He leads the development of the NanoFASE model, a spatiotemporal model of nanomaterial fate and bio-uptake. His work frequently involves assessing the relevance of such models to regulators and industry, tackling issues around how complex model output can be best used in robust, evidence-based decision making. He is currently leads the FRAGMENT-MNP and EMIFACT-MNP projects, which are developing models of micro- and nanoplastic degradation, fragmentation and emissions. He also leads a work package in EU Horizon Europe project ETERNAL, which is working towards reducing the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals.

Sam is interested in how integrated modelling can help us to better quantify the impacts of environmental change, and how the latest software tools, infrastructures and best practices can aid this. He is a keen advocate of, creater of and contributor to open source software and open science. He is a 2022 Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute, a Fellow of NERC's Constructing a Digital Environment Expert Network and a member of the Centre of Excellence in Environmental Data Science (CEEDS). He leads a NERC Global Partnerships Seedcorn Project, which is aiming to bring together an international community of practice around the digital tools supports environmental modelling.

Find out more on his personal website, or find him on GitHub, Mastodon or LinkedIn.