Dr Mark Cresswell
Principal Lecturer
My profile
Biography
Academic and professional qualifications
I completed by first degree (B.Sc, Hons) at St Mary’s University in Twickenham (Biology and Geography)
My MSc was undertaken at the University of Liverpool, within the Dept. of Geography and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
My PhD was undertaken at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The title of the thesis was “Developing an integrated approach to epidemic forecasting, through the monitoring and prediction of meteorological variables associated with disease”
I also have a PgD in Programming and Software Engineering from the University of Liverpool
Previous employment
- RAF (EWS Deployment)
- Foreign and Commonwealth Office
- Sunday Times and South China Morning Post newspapers
- Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
Other academic service (administration and management)
Currently a Principal Lecturer with the role of Postgraduate Programmes Manager for the Department of Natural Sciences within the Faculty of Science and Engineering
I am also the CPD manager for the Faculty of Science and Engineering
External examiner roles
I have been both internal and external PhD and MPhil examiner for numerous institutions.
Other distinctions
Joined MMU as a Lecturer in 2001. Became a Senior Lecturer in 2007. Appointed EGS Postgraduate Programme Leader in 2009.
Words of wisdom
Whining won’t help.
Website
Teaching
Subjects
Meteorology, remote sensing and GIS, climate change and tropical medicine.
Undergraduate courses
Undergraduate Personal Tutor role
Earth Systems: Meteorology
GIS and Earth Observation: principles of remote sensing and derivation of environmental proxies
Climate and Climate Change: The role of the oceans, atmosphere and orbital influences on climate
Malta Field Trip: Supporting tutor
Impacts and Models of Climate Change: How climate models work, are objectively tested and generate predictions
Project Tutor: for students taking their project research work in the final year of their degree
Postgraduate teaching
Science for Sustainable Development: issues relating to climate change and climate model simulations
Earth Observation: unit tutor for the UNIGIS MSc distance learning programme
MSc Supervision: UNIGIS MSc students
Supervision
Director of Studies for PhD studentship (Predictive modelling to assess changes in ecosystem components associated with disease in Tanzania) with Rachael Reynolds. This project was completed in 2018 and Dr Reynolds is now working as an academic at the University of Chester
Research outputs
Research expertise
Relationships between climate, environment and vector-borne diseases
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Books (authored/edited/special issues)
Scholten, H.J., Velde, R.J.V.D., Manen, N.V. (2009) Geospatial Technology and the Role of Location in Science. Springer Science & Business Media.
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Reports
Folegani, M., Cresswell, M.P., Ceccato, P., Michelozzi, P. (2014) Earth Observation for Climate-related Health risk in Africa - EOCHA. MEEO.
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Journal articles
Reynolds, R., Cavan, G., Cresswell, M. (2017) 'The local response of El Niño events and changing disease distribution in Tanzania.' Weather, 72(7) pp. 206-215.
Molesworth, A.M., Thomson, M.C., Connor, S.J., Cresswell, M.P., Morse, A.P., Shears, P., Hart, C.A., Cuevas, L.E. (2002) 'Where is the meningitis belt? Defining an area at risk of epidemic meningitis in Africa..' Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg, 96(3) pp. 242-249.
Thomson, M.C., Palmer, T., Morse, A.P., Cresswell, M.P., Connor, S.J. (2000) 'Forecasting disease risk with seasonal climate predictions.' The Lancet, 355(9214) pp. 1559-1560.
Kovats, S., Cresswell, M.P. (1999) 'El Niño and health: the potential benefits of seasonal forecasting for epidemic disease..' Tiempo, 33pp. 11-14.
Cresswell, M.P., Thomson, M.C., Morse, A.P., Connor, S.J., Graham, R. (1999) 'New advances in climate forecasting tools and satellite imagery for disease modelling.' Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 93(2) pp. 118-119.
Cresswell, M.P., Morse, A.P., Thomson, M.C., Connor, S.J. (1999) 'Estimating surface air temperatures, from meteosat land surface temperatures, using an empirical solar zenith angle model.' International Journal of Remote Sensing, 20(6) pp. 1125-1132.
Cresswell, M.P., Connor, S.J., Morse, A.P. (1997) 'Improved estimates of ambient air temperature, for large area studies of vector bionomics.' Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 91(5) pp. 502-503.
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Conference papers
Cresswell, M.P., Morse, A.P., Thomson, M.C., Graham, R. (1999) 'Evaluation of HADAM3 model simulations to predict the onset of the West African Monsoon.' In 24th Annual Climate Diagnostics Conference. Arizona, 5/11/1999 - 9/11/1999. pp. 276-279.
Cresswell, M.P., Thomson, M.C., Connor, S.J., Morse, A.P. (1997) 'The estimation of proxy ambient air temperatures, by transformation of meteosat land surface temperatures, using a solar zenith angle radiation model.' In Eumetsat Satellite Data User's Conference. Brussels, 29/9/1997 - 3/10/1997. pp. 491-495.
Press and media
Due to the media-friendly nature of my work, I have attracted a number of media interviews:
- BBC World Service Radio (Science Now)
- BBC Radio 1 (NewsBeat)
- BBC Radio 4 (Science in Action)
- BBC Radio Merseyside (News item)
- Times Higher Education (Research Feature Article)
- Liverpool Echo (News Item)
- Channel 1 Television (News Item)
- Channel 1 Television (News item relating to Mozambique flooding crisis in Feb 2000)