James McLaughlin

James graduated from Durham University in 2002 with a MSci (joint honours) Mathematics and Physics degree. He then moved to the University of St Andrews for his PhD studies in Applied Mathematics and Solar Physics. After successfully defending his thesis entitled “Magnetohydrodynamic wave propagation in the neighbourhood of magnetic null points", he accepted a research scientist position at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, USA. Later, he returned to the University of St Andrews as a Research Fellow funded by the Leverhulme Trust. In 2010, he was appointed Lecturer at Northumbria University.

Since then, James has initiated and driven multiple, major academic initiatives across the University, and he has led on complex inter-disciplinary large-scale projects. These include creating and leading the ‘Solar and Space Physics’ research group, which is one of the University’s ‘peaks of excellence, ’ acting as Principal Investigator of NUdata STFC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Data Intensive Science and acting as Departmental Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange (Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering.) James is also REF2021 UoA12 Engineering Academic Lead for Impact Case Studies portfolio) and REF2021 UoA14 Geography and Environmental Studies Co-Lead.

James has sat on multiple University panels, including REF2021 Planning Group (university-wide); played a leading role in the creation and approval of the Multi-Disciplinary Research Theme “Extreme Environments”; Faculty Research & Innovation Committee (FRIC); Faculty Research & Ethics Sub-Committee (FRESC); Faculty Research Strategy Sub-Committee (FRSSC); Faculty Research Grant Promotion Sub-Committee (FRGPSC), and Faculty Sabbatical Group.