Roy M. Harrison
Roy Michael Harrison is a British environmental scientist. He has been Queen Elizabeth II Birmingham Centenary Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham since 1991, and is a distinguished adjunct professor at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Early life and education
Roy Michael Harrison was born on 14 October 1948 to Wilfred and Rosa Harrison. He was educated at Henley Grammar School and the University of Birmingham, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry in 1969, followed by a PhD in organic chemistry in 1972 and a Doctor of Science degree in environmental chemistry in 1989. His PhD research investigated sigmatropic reactions of tropolone ethers.Research and career
Harrison is an expert on air pollution, specialising in the area of airborne particulates, including nanoparticles. His interests extend from source emissions, through atmospheric chemical and physical transformations, to human exposures and effects upon health. His most significant work has been in the field of vehicle emitted particles, including their chemical composition and atmospheric processing. This forms the basis of the current understanding of the relationship of emissions to roadside concentrations and size distributions.In addition to leading a large project on diesel exhaust particles, he is also engaged in major collaborative studies of processes determining air quality in Beijing and Delhi.