Supervisors: Dr. Alan Hunter and Dr. Lee Bryant

Background

James is a Chartered Engineer with over twenty years of experience, at sea and ashore, as a Marine Engineer Officer in the Royal Navy (RN). This included Senior Engineering posts at the RN Marine Engineering School, Technical Advisor to Foreign Navies, Waterfront Representative for the UK Government to the Saudi Royal Navy, Sea-Going Engineering Head of Department (Chief Engineer) jobs, as well as various specialist technical postings.

After leaving the Royal Navy, James taught Mathematics at a secondary school in Southampton for several years before going self-employed as a jobbing builder and odd job man. Having decided he needed more of a challenge, and to update his technical knowledge especially in the area of computing and informatics, James decided to work for the Ph.D. he should have undertaken many years ago. Having completed a very enjoyable academic year at the University of Exeter as part of the WISE CDT, James will undertake his Ph.D. research at the University of Bath.

An active member of the IMarEST throughout his engineering career, James was instrumental in reforming the Benelux Branch of the IMarEST and was the branch chairman for several years whilst on a job Exchange with the Royal Netherlands Navy as their Gas Turbine Technical expert.

James will be undertaking his Ph.D. research into the design, build and especially the deployment of low cost, micro underwater gliders for use on extended duration and near real-time monitoring missions. Deployment possibilities for such micro gliders include reservoir water quality monitoring, pollution and clean up and potential military applications.

Key Areas of Interest

Micro Underwater Gliders

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Water Quality Monitoring

Autonomous Lake Inspection

Environmental Compliance