Geoff Phillips
Hon Professor of Biological and Environmental Sciences
Geoff’s interest in freshwater ecology began when he was a child. A present of a microscope and a library book illustration of a diatom set him off exploring the aquatic environment. This early interest flourished as a student at the University of East Anglia (UEA), where he studied biology as an undergraduate and then completed a PhD studying the ecology of submerged plants in the Norfolk Broads.
Subsequently working with Brian Moss at the UEA, he laid the foundations for a restoration programme for what was to become a National Park. Geoff joined the local Water Authority in the late 1970s to spearhead this restoration work and has been privileged to continue to take an active interest in it via subsequent roles in the National River Authority and Environment Agency. During the last 10 years of working with the EA he led the development of the ecological assessment systems for lakes needed for the Water Framework Directive, personally developing the method for phytoplankton assessment. During this time Geoff also worked with many European colleagues, contributing to a number of EU framework projects and undertaking comparisons of national WFD assessment methods for phytoplankton and macrophytes in lakes. Throughout his career he has been able to continue with research activities and has been an honorary research fellow of the UEA since 1993.
Geoff is now an honorary professor at Stirling University; since retiring he has been active as a peer reviewer for a number of journals and has been carrying out analysis of large data sets with a view to understanding more about the impacts of nutrients on rivers and lakes. He lives in the Norfolk Broads area and continues to be involved with their restoration, advising the Broads Authority and other organisations on the management of these lakes, based on the analysis of long-term data sets. He has also continued with work on a European scale, working with the EU Joint Research Centre as a national expert, undertaking a review of national WFD nutrient standards and subsequently developing a statistical toolkit and contributing to a guidance document aimed at improving the consistency of standards. In the UK he has recently turned his attention to the impact of nutrients in rivers, generating a large spatially matched data set of morphological, water quality and biological data collected by the UK Environment Agencies over the last decade. Geoff also now finds time to collect and “look” at aquatic organisms, improving his taxonomic skills and enjoys enthusing others via a variety of local groups.
