Professor Larissa Naylor she/her
Professor of Geomorphology and Environmental Geography
Mission Priority Areas
I have a strong personal commitment to helping those from marginalised groups and/or with protected characteristics have equality of opportunity.
Coming from an immigrant family, where my parents were subjected to racial/cultural limitations on their careers and who were first in the family to go to University, I am firmly committed to supporting others have improved access and smoother paths to learning.
I have successfully supervised several PhD students from non-traditional backgrounds to University, who have gone on to launch excellent careers in government, industry and NGOs. This has been extremely fulfilling, particularly as a woman in a field which is still male-dominated.
My research passion is working at interfaces, between different types of science (engineering-geography-design-ecology), between science-policy-practice (my research has changed laws and created international guidelines) and with artists, makers and designers (creating new products for eco-engineering at the coast). I am genuinely interested in the process of transdisciplinary working and have extensive experience of leading highly successful, often award winning, projects with practitioners at the coast. This work has led me to influence at the highest level, including the World Bank’s Executive Board. I support my students with their research, but also in helping develop their own research and practice networks, opening doors for their future careers and staying in touch, often helping coach them for interviews for their 2nd or 3rd jobs after their PhDs have been completed. I am thus committed as a supervisor, but also in supporting those individuals achieve a secure footing on their career ladders after their PhDs.
I would be keen to support transdisciplinary projects that work across academia and practice (whether this is communities, practitioners or policymakers) to support society in taking climate resilient, intergenerationally just decisions now to learn to live with/adapt to the climate changes we are already committed to in the coming decades.
At Glasgow, my research forms part of the Earth System Science Research Group at the University of Glasgow, specifically geosphere-biosphere interactions, the Anthrosphere and stressed Environments and communities research clusters. We take a team approach to supervision in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, where my students often have a team of scientists, or scientists combined with human geographers to form supervisory teams, including with government and industry co-supervisors. My graduated students work on pressing environmental and climate change challenges in government agencies in the UK, at NASA and in academia. They are helping use science to help shape decisions, policies and laws to improve our planet’s resilience to the combined challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss. My student’s are thus highly qualified to help address the growing planetary health emergency.
I am strongly committed to EDI having co-established Glasgow’s widening participation summer school for Geography and Earth Science, and having recently led our Athena Swan Silver Renewal for my school as newly appointed Chair of EDI. Lastly, I strive to have a healthy work-life balance, juggling spending quality time with my sons doing creative, playful and outdoorsy things including wild swimming.
