I was born in Peterborough, England. As an undergraduate I attended the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, graduating in 1977 with a B.Sc. degree in Physical Geography. I obtained a Masters degree, also in Physical Geography, from Carleton University, Canada in 1980. In 1986 I was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Agronomy (Soil Physics) from Cornell University, USA where I studied with Professor R.D. Miller. My doctoral studies focused on the upheaval of plants by ice segregation during soil freezing.
I returned to Canada in 1987 to spend eight years working as a Post-doctoral Research Scientist with Professor B.D. Kay at the University of Guelph, Ontario. My research activities during this time included work on soil freezing phenomena, soil structure and fractal geometry. In 1995 I joined the Department of Agronomy, at the University of Kentucky, USA as an Assistant Professor. During my six years at Kentucky I taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in Soil Science, including Fundamentals of Soil Science, Soil Physics and Soil-Plant Relationships. I completed two Ph.D. students (Mike Sukop and Martin Díaz-Zorita) and continued my research on the application of fractal geometry to quantify soil structure.
I joined the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville as an Assistant Professor in August 2001. I am currently an Associate Professor, and specialize in Vadose Zone Hydrology. I am a member of the Hydrogeology Research Group and am involved in teaching both undergraduate and graduate level courses in the Hydrogeology program. My research interests are centered on relations between pore space geometry and soil hydraulic and chemical transport properties, and understanding the scale-dependency of these relations.
I have authored or coauthored over 85 scientific publications in refereed journals and 12 book chapters. I have been invited to present lectures on my area of specialization in Brazil, Spain and around the United States. I was an Associate Editor for the Soil Science Society of America Journal from 1994-99, and have guest edited special issues of the journals Soil and Tillage Research and Ecological Modelling. I regularly review papers for scientific journals, as well as research proposals for governmental agencies such as DOE, USDA-NRI and NSF.
I am an active member of the following organizations: American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America, International Society of Soil Science, and the Soil Science Society of America.