Project Team

Prof Stuart Harrad

 Professor Stuart Harrad from the University of Birmingham is a world-leading expert on the environmental fate and behaviour of persistent organic pollutants, with a particular focus on BFRs, and will act as the overall Principal Investigator and coordinator of the FUEL project. He has coordinated two further EPA research projects in Ireland – the WAFER and ELEVATE projects dealing with various aspects of POPs in the Irish environment – and has led three EU-funded Marie Curie Initial Training Network Projects – A-TEAM, ELUTE, and INFLAME – which focus on training new generations of scientists to tackle the hazards posed by persistent organic pollutants in the environment. FUEL will also benefit from interactions with the global network of research organisations working on the environmental implications of consumer chemicals in the waste stream provided by Harrad’s leadership of the EU-funded INTERWASTE project

Dr Mohamed Abdallah

Dr Mohamed Abdallah from the University of Birmingham will act as an adviser to the research team during the project. Having acted as a Principal Researcher on the  “WAFER” project, his knowledge of mass-spectrometric analysis techniques in trace analysis of environmental pollutants (including HBCDD, PBDEs and PFOS) as well as his development of novel methods for the extraction of pollutant compounds for chemical analysis makes him uniquely knowledgeable in the sample extraction chemical analysis stages of the research project.

Once samples have been collected ready for chemical analysis, a suitably-qualified postdoctoral researcher will be appointed at the University of Birmingham to liaise with Martin Sharkey and lead on the determination of POP-BFRs and PFOS in all samples generated in FUEL.

Dr Harald Berresheim

Dr Harald Berresheim from the National University of Ireland Galway is the Principal Investigator of the FUEL project based in Ireland. Previously, he has been the Principal Investigator in numerous research projects related to atmospheric physics and environmental chemistry including those funding by the EPA and the Science Foundation of Ireland. He currently acts as Deputy Director of the Mace Head Atmospheric Monitoring Station and leads the research on Atmospheric Trace Gases within the Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies.

Martin Sharkey

Martin Sharkey is the Ireland-based project researcher working on FUEL. He will be largely responsible for the sample collection and data analysis in addition to assisting with the chemical extraction and analysis of the samples. Currently studying for his PhD in Dr. Berresheim’s Environmental Physics team, he has completed his bachelor’s degree in Physics with Applied Physics, including studies on Environmental and Atmospheric Physics, and was part of the WAFER research group working on sample collection and chemical analysis as well as dissemination of research findings at several international conferences on POPs.