Dr Rupert Hough is an environmental / soil scientist with expertise in risk modelling and exposure assessment. Rupert obtained his PhD from Nottingham University in 2002 and subsequently, worked as a Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, managing an EU-funded investigation into the carcinogenic risks from arsenic in drinking water in Central and Eastern Europe. Rupert joined Cranfield University's Integrated Waste Management Centre in 2005 as an Academic Fellow. In this post, he was project manager for a ca. £1M Government-industry LINK consortium researching the optimisation of biopile processes for weathered hydrocarbons within a risk management framework. The research aimed to deliver improved stakeholder confidence in engineered biopiling when applied to weathered hydrocarbon wastes.
In his current position, Rupert uses risk-based methods to aid decision making and management of specific problems. Such methods have wide applicability and Rupert has used them for evaluation of both human and ecological problems; from finding appropriate ways to reduce dietary exposures to heavy metals, through to managing peat erosion under given climate change scenarios.
Rupert is part of the management team for the Soils Department. In this role, he coordinates WP3.2 "Risk-Based methods to Assess Soil Quality [1]", part of Programme 3 [2] funded by The Scottish Executive. Through this work, Dr Hough is leading the development of the soil monitoring scheme for Scotland. Rupert also leads the research area of 'Contaminated Land and Urban Soils' for the Institute. He has specific activities investigating contaminated land issues in the developing country context, and currently has research collaborations in SE Asia.
Links:
[1] http://www.macaulay.ac.uk/soilquality/soilresearchWP3.2.php
[2] http://www.programme3.net/