Phil Ashworth

Phil Ashworth is a Professor of Physical Geography specialising in river morphodynamics and sedimentology. His research interests span a range of scales including the largest rivers and estuaries in the world. He focusses on the field quantification of alluvial morphodynamics, the diversity of large river pattern and the application of fluvial sedimentology in characterising reservoir heterogeneity. This work has been supported by 16 NERC grants and several contracts from the petroleum industry.

Phil Ashworth is Head of Brighton Doctoral College and a Professor of Physical Geography. Until February 2024, he was Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange).

Whilst Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Phil led development of the Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence (COREs), and the financial management of the quality-related (QR) income. From February 2023, he was the Interim Director of the Brighton Doctoral College and oversaw its £1.7m budget. Phil was a member of the Executive-led 'Securing our Future' Group that planned the new size and shape of the university from 1 September 2018. As part of this work, he led the workstream making £2.2m of efficiency gains and savings across the Research and KE remit. He also recently served on the University TRAC group and still is a member of the University IT Governance Board that is charged with overseeing the Digital Transformation Programme. Phil was a lead member of the University REF2021 executive team, including principal author of the Institutional-Level Environment Statement and with oversight of the submissions to A3 (Joint Submission with Sussex), B11, B12 and C14.

Phil is an international scholar in the earth, physical and environmental sciences with H-Index of 51 and over 7400 citations. He currently works on landscape evolution and sedimentation across a range of scales including the largest rivers and estuaries in the world. His research has been supported by over £5.5m of funding including 16 grants from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Phil worked closely with the petroleum industry including a number of projects funded by BP and ExxonMobil.

Phil has a strong association with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) where he was one of only 14 UK scientists invited to chair all the Responsive Mode grant panels (2010-2014). He has also chaired panels for a number of Directed Programmes, Strategic Capital Equipment, International Opportunities and Global Partnerships, and a joint UKRI-India programme. Phil is currently a NERC Core member of the Peer Review College and was a member of the NERC Scientific Support and Facilities Review Group in 2022. He is a member of the UKRI Talent Panel College and was Deputy Chair in interviews for Rounds 1 and 4 and a Sift Member for Round 5. He also recently served on the EPSRC AI CDT panel and was a panel reviewer for outputs from the Royal Society Africa Capacity Building Initiative. Phil was a council member and trustee of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) (2014-2017) and is a co-author of the Benchmark Review of UK Physical Geography produced in association with the RGS. He was made a Fellow of the British Society for Geomorphology in 2014 and received the RGS Cuthbert Peek Award in May 2021 from the RGS for 'pioneering wide-reaching research methods through remote sensing and modelling of river dynamics'.

Phil was appointed to the REF2021 UoA14 Geography and Environmental Studies sub-panel and with a small group helped draft the C14 input to the Guidance on Submissions and Criteria and Working Methods. Phil completed a full assessment load grading outputs, impact case studies and environment statements. This work was completed in February 2022.

Phil is a keen advocate of research dissemination through different media and has outputs on ResearchGate, YouTube, and Twitter and has published articles in the Times Higher Education and Wonkhe

I will be delighted to supervise PhD students in river dynamics, sediment transport and morphological change in the world's largest rivers, flooding and river-floodplain connectivity and UAVs/drone applications in river mapping. An example of a recently completed PhD is 'Floodplain geomorphology and topography in large rivers' Strick, R.