Professor John McCloskey (University of Ulster)
John McCloskey studied at Queen’s University Belfast graduating in 1980. He completed a post-graduate certificate in education before spending 10 years teaching physics at secondary level. He was awarded the Institute of Physics Teacher of the Year award in 1992 and completed his Ph. D. in earthquake physics later that year. One of the papers he published from his Ph.D. was awarded the European Geophysical Society Young Scientist’s Publication Award for 1993. He was appointed as lecturer in Environmental Modelling in the Department of Environmental Studies in 1993 and was awarded a personal chair in Geophysics in 2001. He has served on the NERC Geophysical Equipment Facility for 4 years as a member and an additional 4 as chair; he was Head of the School of Environmental Sciences from 2002 to 2006 and was a elected member of the Senate of the University of Ulster until 2007. He has recently been appointed to the NERC Natural Hazards Advisory Group and has been named in the Times list of 100 most influential scientists.
His research interests continue to involve the study of crustal systems and earthquake physics and he now concentrates on the study of stress interaction triggering, whereby earthquakes can communicate, one earthquake making another more (or less) likely. Following the great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of 26/12/2004 his group used these techniques successfully to forecast the 2005 Simeulue-Nias earthquake (M8.7). Stress interaction calculations can identify those geological structures that are most likely to produce damaging earthquakes in the near future and can lead to forecasts of their likely consequences. McCloskey now concentrates his effort almost exclusively on Sumatra. He has published more than 10 papers in top journals and has been PI on 5 NERC funded projects on the earthquake threat there; he was PI on an ELRHA project on linking earthquake science to the NGO sector. His work informs DRR planning and he has become increasingly involved in attempts to communicate earthquake science to at-risk populations. He is a regular contributor to the national and international media where he argues for greater dialogue between the scientific and humanitarian communities for DRR in developing countries.
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