Cranfield University

Professor Paul Harrison

Visiting Professor in Environment and Health, Institute of Environment and Health
Location: Cranfield Health, Vincent Building, Cranfield Campus
E: paul.harrison@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1234 758300

Current activities

Paul Harrison is Visiting Professor in Environment and Health at Cranfield University and acts as a consultant to IEH on a range of research and academic matters. He has worked in the environment and health field for many years and has extensive links with scientists in industry and in government departments and agencies including the Department of Health, Defra, Environment Agency, FSA, HPA and HSE. Amongst his current activities for IEH he is involved in a number of projects involving chemical hazard and risk assessment, the planning and delivery of Master's and short courses, the planning of scientific workshops, and the scientific editing of reports. Paul is also Director of PTCH Consultancy Limited, specialising in environmental toxicology, chemical toxicology and risk assessment, dust and fibre toxicology, indoor air quality, research management, and environment and health policy.

Prof Harrison has a PhD in environmental physiology from the University of London and post-doctoral research experience in respiratory tract carcinogenesis and toxicological pathology. He is a BTS/IoB and Eurotox registered toxicologist and a Fellow of the BTS.

Background

Prof Harrison’s previous experience includes a period as Senior Toxicologist at BP’s Occupational Health Centre, where he was responsible for advising on the toxicity of various chemicals and products and for the unit’s research quality assurance programme. In 1991 he joined the UK Department of the Environment where he  became Head of the Indoor Air Quality and Major Accidents Branch of the Toxic Substances Division before his secondment to the Medical Research Council in October 1993 to help establish the Institute for Environment and Health at Leicester University. Prof Harrison formally transferred to the MRC in 1997, and was appointed Acting Director of MRC-IEH in July 1998. Following re-establishment at Cranfield University in November 2005, Prof Harrison was appointed as Institute Director, a position he held until starting his own consultancy company in October 2008. While at IEH, Prof Harrison led research teams addressing a range of issues relating to environment and health with, in later years, the main focus being on health effects of pollution (including indoor air quality, waste combustion and contaminated land), endocrine disruption, and chemical exposure and risk assessment.

Prof Harrison has held positions on various expert groups and committees, including the UK Chemicals Stakeholder Forum (Deputy Chair), EC Expert Group on Indoor Air Quality, DH Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP), the Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards (EPAQS) and the Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances (ACHS). He was the founder Chairman of the UK Indoor Environments Group. Prof Harrison is currently Chair of the Cranfield University Health Research Ethics Committee and also sits on the MHRA Herbal Medicines Advisory Committee.

Selected publications