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Personal profile

Biography

I graduated in Marine Biology from University of Wales, Swansea, and then completed a PhD on the life histories of marine invertebrates under the supervision of Paul Tyler. I moved to a NERC postdoctoral fellowship at Newcastle University's marine laboratory, then after further postdoctoral posts at Durham and Hull, moved to UEA in 1989.

I was Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for the UEA Doctoral College from 2019 to 2022, responsible for Postgraduate Research Students across the University. Prior to that I was Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research in the Faculty of Science. While at UEA, have (at various times) been Director of Finance, Director of Enterprise and Deputy Head of the School of Environmental Sciences, and Director of the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation (CEEC - http://www.uea.ac.uk/env/ceec/). 

Over the past few months, I have been carrying out regular analyses of publicly available daily data on incidence of COVID-19 in England.

And my most recent analyses of R-values for individual local authorities in England are available here: https://archive.uea.ac.uk/~e130/R.html

 

My paper, The reproduction number R for COVID-19 in England: Why hasn′t ″lockdown″ been more effective? medRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.02.20144840 provides a simple approximation to estimate R, the reproduction number, from time series of numbers of COVID-19 cases or deaths. For England as a whole, and for English regions, R values have been only a little below 1 since mid-April 2020. The data indicate that COVID-19 transmission had reduced substantially before the compulsory restrictions on activity usually referred to as "lockdown" and suggest that transmission since then has occurred primarily between a relatively small proportion of the population who have large numbers of close contacts, in workplaces, residential care or through activities that were officially prohibited during the period examined.

A previous paper, Dynamics of COVID-19 epidemics: SEIR models underestimate peak infection rates and overestimate epidemic duration, medRxiv 2020/050674 https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.02.20050674 highlights a serious problem with the use of compartment models, such as SEIR, to forecast the dynamics of epidemics like COVID-19. These models, which are used by the great majority of published papers modelling the COVID-19 epidemic, substantially underestimate peak infection rates, and severely overestimate the time that it takes for infection rates to reduce after social distancing measures are introduced or the majority of the population acquires immunity.

Current research students: Areej AlKhalifa, Gallab Alotaibi, Abdullah Aleidan

Personal Website: http://www.uea.ac.uk/~e130/

  • Research opportunities

I always welcome email enquiries from potential PhD students. I would be particularly keen to recruit someone to work on pollution tolerant populations or communities, but will seriously consider applicants wanting to work on one of my other areas of interest. Recent PhD students have been funded by Commonwealth University fellowships, the Ford Foundation and studentships from their home countries.

  • PhD Positions in School of Environmental Sciences

Click here for a list of current PhD opportunities in the School of Environmental Sciences.

 

Key Research Interests

Ecological effects of marine pollution and the use of pollution tolerant populations and communities to extend our understanding of this; ecotoxicology; links between biomarkers and ecological effects; life history biology and population dynamics, particularly elasticity analysis; ecological development of managed retreat sites and created salt marshes.

Significant Publications

  • Condie, H.M., Catchpole, T.L., and Grant, A. 2014. Reducing discards and unwanted catch; the impact of catch quotas and a discard ban on English North Sea otter trawlers. ICES Journal of Marine Science. 71(5):1266-1276. doi: 10.1093/icesjms/fst187
  • Turner, T.R., K. Ramakrishnan, J. Walshaw, D. Heavens, M. Alston, D. Swarbreck, A. Osbourn, A. Grant and P.S. Poole.  2013.  Comparative metatranscriptomics reveals kingdom level changes in the rhizosphere microbiome of plants.  ISME Journal 7:2248-2258  Doi: 10.1038/isme.2013.119
  • Mossman, H.L., A.J. Davy and A. Grant, 2012. Does managed coastal realignment create saltmarshes with ‘equivalent biological characteristics’ to natural reference sites? Journal of Applied Ecology. Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2012.02198.x
  • Davy, A.J., M.J.H. Brown, H. L. Mossman and A. Grant, 2011. Colonisation of a newly developing salt marsh: disentangling independent effects of elevation and redox potential on halophytes. J. Ecol., 99:1350-1357. Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2011.01870.x
  • R. Enever, A.S. Revill, A. Grant, 2009. Discarding in the North Sea and on the historical efficacy of gear-based technical measures in reducing discards. Fisheries Research 95, 40–46. Doi: 10.1016/j.fishres.2008.07.008
  • Ogilvie, L.A. and A. Grant, 2008 Linking pollution induced community tolerance (PICT) and microbial community structure in chronically metal polluted estuarine sediments. Marine Environmental Research 65(2):187-198. Doi: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2007.10.002
  • Goodwin, N.B., A. Grant, A L. Perry, N K. Dulvy and J D. Reynolds, (2006). Life history correlates of density-dependent recruitment and adult production in marine fishes. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 63: 494-509
  • Grant, A. and Briggs, A.D. (2002) Toxicity of sediments from around a North Sea oil platform: are metals or hydrocarbons responsible for ecological impacts? Marine Environmental Research 53(1), 95-116. Doi: 10.1016/S0141-1136(01)00114-3
  • Ibiam, U. and Grant, A. (2005). RNA/DNA ratios as a sublethal endpoint for large scale toxicity testing with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 24, 1155-1159 Doi: 10.1897/04-262R.1 
  • Grant. A. and Benton, T.G., (2003). Density dependent populations require density dependent elasticity analysis: An illustration using the LPA model of Tribolium. Journal of Animal Ecology 72, 94-105. Doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2656.2003.00684.x 
  • Gardner, T.A., Côté, I. M., Gill, J.A., Grant, A. and Watkinson, A.R., (2003). Long-term Region-wide Declines in Caribbean Corals. Science 301: 958-960 Doi: 10.1126/science.1086050 
  • Gardner, T.A., Gill, J.A., Grant, A., Watkinson, A.R. and Côté, I. M., (2005). Hurricanes and Caribbean coral reefs: Impacts, recovery patterns, and role in long-term decline. Ecology 86, 174-184 Doi: 10.1890/04-0141


Publications: EPrints Digital Repository

Key Responsibilities

  • Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for the UEA Doctoral College

Areas of Expertise

Marine invertebrate life histories; marine pollution; analysis of ecological data.

Postgraduate Research Opportunities

I always welcome email enquiries from potential PhD students. I would be particularly keen to recruit someone to work on pollution tolerant populations or communities, but will seriously consider applicants wanting to work on one of my other areas of interest.  I am unlikely to have any studentship funding available in 2014/15, but will help with applications for external funding - recent PhD students have been funded by Commonwealth University fellowships, the Ford Foundation and studentships from their home countries.

Click here for other current PhD opportunities in the School of Environmental Sciences.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 14 - Life Below Water

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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