Nick Petford

Professor Nick Petford DSc, DL
Born	Nicholas Petford 27 May 1961 (1961-05-27) (age 60) Friern Barnet, London, England
Alma mater	University of Liverpool, Goldsmiths, University of London
Occupation	Vice Chancellor and CEO, University of Northampton, UK
Television	The Volcano that Stopped the World, Krakatoa Revealed, Top 10 Natural Disasters
Board member of	Chair: Northamptonshire Health and Wellbeing Board, Director: Fluvial Innovations, Starcrest Education, Trustee: UnLtd, Silverstone UTC
Awards	Murchison Fund, Geological Society of London, Hon. DSc Amity University, India, Visiting Professor Macquarie University, Australia, Communication University of China
Website	uk.linkedin.com/in/nick-petford-9331aa9

Nick Petford (born 27 May 1961, London, England) is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Northampton.^[1] Previously he was Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at Bournemouth University and before that Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Kingston University. He has also worked for BP and on academic and commercial research projects throughout the world. As an academic he is known for his expertise in magmatic systems and volcanology. He is a Deputy Lieutenant for Northamptonshire.

Personal life[]

Petford grew up in Hayes West London, before moving to the Hiltingbury district of Chandlers Ford where he went to The Mountbatten School, a comprehensive, near Southampton. He is married with three children. His family come from the Kentish Town and Islington areas of North London. Nick Petford has claimed that his maternal grandmother is Ashkenazi Jewish. His identical twin aunties were long standing variety and music hall performers. ^[2] In 1977, Nick Petford co-founded Strate Jacket,^[3] Southampton's first punk band, although he only featured in the first line up and left before they released their first single.^[4] In the early 1980s he contributed to Geoff Wall's 'Stick it in Your Ear' tapes. 'Stick it in your ear' was a music distribution company based in Southampton, and supported by the local council, that had a policy of distributing locally a small number of cassettes of any local band of any genre that sent music to them, many of these were school-based bands, although Nick Petford was slightly older at the time that a cassette featuring his song was released.^[5] Nick Petford also briefly played in another local punk band - the Afghan Rebels.

Career[]

Nick Petford left school at 16, training as a refrigeration engineer and then working in retail, before doing an Access Course in Science at Southwark College. This led to reading Geology at Goldsmiths, University of London (1984–1987). He received a PhD from the University of Liverpool in 1991 and a DSc in 2009.^[6] He also holds an honorary DSc from Amity University.

He is a former Royal Society University Research Fellow and Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. Nick Petford's contributions to the media on volcanoes include appearances on Sky News, BBC TV and Radio, the Richard and Judy show and National Geographic's "Top 10 Natural Disasters".^[7] In 2005, the BBC referred to the work of his research team in a documentary Krakatoa Revealed.^[8] During the 2010 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano he fronted the Channel 4 documentary The Volcano That Stopped Britain.^[9] His Who's Who entry lists one of his hobbies as crowd surfing.^[10][11] This is a reference to a Students' Union event in 2014 hosted by Simon_Brodkin as Lee Nelson, where he agreed to crowd surf and join in a speed drinking contest. This incident, reported in the media, was criticised by the University of Northampton UCU (the recognised trade union which represents academic and teaching staff at the university), but received some support from individual students. ^[12] Under Nick Petford's tenure the University of Northampton built the architecturally-acclaimed and award-winning £330 million Waterside Campus,^[13][14][15]. The restoration of a Grade II listed Engine Shed was particularly well reviewed, funding for this aspect of the campus build was received from the Heritage Lottery Fund.^[16][17] The borrowing for the building of the new campus was underwritten by a UK Government guarantee scheme, the first to be used by a university. ^[18] Concerned about the debt level, in 2014, members of UCU at the University of Northampton voted that they had no confidence in the University of Northampton's senior leadership (including that of Nick Petford as Vice-Chancellor) - the UCU executive endorsed this vote by their members.^[19] This view was rejected by the University's governing body.

Other roles[]

He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, American Geophysical Union, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was Vice President of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland (2002–2004).^[20] From 2012 to 2015 he chaired a Universities UK Task & Finish Group looking at procurement^[21] and social value.^[22] He is a non-executive director of Fluvial Innovations, a university spin-out company that manufactures and sells Floodstop flood defence barriers.^[23] In 2018 he joined the board of Starcrest Education The Belt and Road Ltd as a Non-Executive Director.^[24]

His career turns were included as part of a BBC Radio 4 show, Whatever Happened To? in August 2018, along with two former classmates John Russell and Dave Coombs from their City and Guilds refrigeration course at Eastleigh Technical College in 1977.^[25] In 2018 he was referred to in a Guardian article on state school educated University Vice Chancellors.^[26] He is currently presenting a monthly radio show and podcast Shout to the Top on NLive Radio, a radio station based at the University of Northampton.

Edited publications[]

• Jerram. D & Petford, N (2011), The Field Description of Igneous Rocks. The Geological Field Guide Series, Wiley‐Blackwell, West Sussex, UK 256 pp.
• Petford, N., Sparks, R.S.J., Hutton, D.H.W. 2008, (Eds), Plutons and Batholiths, Trans. R. Soc. Edinburgh. 97, Part 4, 297–477.
• Thompson, K & Petford, N, 2008, (Eds) Structure and Emplacement of High-Level Magmatic Systems: Geol. Soc. London. Spec Pub. 302, 227 pp.
• Petford, N. 2006, (Ed), Post-Perovskite Workshop, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Visual Geosciences, DOI 10.1007/s10069-006-0001-0.
• Breitkreuz, C. & Petford, N., &. 2004, (Eds), Physical Geology of Subvolcanic Intrusions. Geol. Soc. London. Spec Pub, 225.
• Petford, N. & McCaffrey, K.J.W. 2003, (Eds), Hydrocarbons in Crystalline Rocks. Geol. Soc. London Spec. Pub. 215.
• Brown, M., Petford, N. and Schilling, F.R. 2001 (Eds), Crustal Melting and Granite Magmatism: Causes and Behaviours from Pores to Plutons. Phys. Chem. Earth, (A) 26, No. 4-5, 201–367.
• David, C., Petford, N. & Risnes, R. 2001 (Eds), Compaction, Subsidence and the Mechanics of Granular Materials, Phys. Chem. Earth (A) 26, No. 1-2, 3–111.

References[]

External links[]

• The University of Northampton
• Fluvial Innovations
• Full publication list here via Google Scholar