Senior Honorary Professorial Fellow: John Farmer

John Farmer has been made Senior Honorary Professorial Fellow.

The appointment follows his progress from Lecturer to Professor (2004-08, Environmental Geochemistry) at Edinburgh.

A Glasgow graduate in Chemistry, his subsequent PhD thesis there was on isotopic studies of atmospheric/biospheric carbon cycling.

Postdoctoral research at Woods Hole focused on fallout radionuclide behaviour in the Great Lakes.

Returning to Glasgow, he combined forensic science duties with research on the environment and human health, notably on arsenic.

Moving to Edinburgh in 1987, he spearheaded developments in Environmental Chemistry for 17 years.

Alongside this he pursued environmental change and biogeochemical research on potentially harmful trace elements in various environmental sectors.

Professor Farmer was chairman of major international conferences on Heavy Metals in the Environment (1991) and Environmental Geochemistry (2003) in Edinburgh.

He was also President of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health from 2002-05.

He has been Executive Editor of “Science of the Total Environment” since 2002.

Apart from science, his main current interests are sport and the outdoors.

His wife Ann runs her own land search company.

Children Alison, Chris and David work in theoretical astrophysics research, golf market investment and retail market analysis, respectively.