Professor Chris Collins

My research focuses on the mechanisms controlling exposure of biota to environmental pollution. This combines collection of experimental data in conjunction with the development of process description models. My group has developed a variety of assessment tools, including an in-vitro gut model to assess the bioaccessibility of pollutants in the human gut, model systems to determine uptake of soil contaminants by plants and earthworms and biokinetic models for human exposure. These are designed as robust approaches for practical application and have been applied to support the Interdepartmental Group on Health Risks from Chemicals and the Environment Agency’s Contaminated Land Exposure Model.

Ongoing research addresses the role of soil organic carbon in modifying pollutant exposure and the parallels between pollutant and carbon cycling in soils, the latter is critical to the delivery of a range of ecosystem services. This work contrasts high-level analytical techniques such as mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance with rapid spectral methods to study soil responses to environmental perturbations with aim of developing field deployable tools for practitioners. More recent work has adopted a transdisciplinary approach to support low input farming and agriplastic reduction in an international setting.

• Head of Knowledge and Evidence Natural Resources Wales (0.75 FTE) (2021 – 2025)
• Coordinator of the NERC Soil Security Programme (2015-2020)
• Natural Capital Committee(2018 - 2022)
• Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee(2013 – 2022, Chair 2017 onward) 
• Linking Environment and Farming(2016 – 2018) – Board of Directors
• Soil Research Centre (Director 2016-2021)
• Science Media Centre – member of pool of experts responding to news articles