I am Professor of Lighting and Visual Perception in the school of architecture at the University of Sheffield in the UK. I lead the Lighting Research Group along with Chris Cheal who makes sure we do good laboratory work and Jim Uttley who makes sure we do good data analyses. Our research is largely about the effect of lighting on visual perception and visual performance, and this is carried out within three areas of focus; lighting to support safe active travel; spatial brightness; and research methods. Our research on lighting for pedestrians has characterised the critical tasks, studied the effect of changes in lighting on these tasks, and led to changes in design guidance. Our research on spatial brightness led to a revised version of the Kruithof curve. Our research on experimental methods has shown the prevalence of range bias, amongst other effects, showing for example that stimulus range explains the results of experiments using an adjustment procedure. I am Editor in Chief of Lighting Research and Technology, Assistant Director of CIE Division 4, and founder of the LumeNet symposium for research methods in lighting.

I am mentor for two ESRs – Aysheh and Nima. Their work is focussed on application – road lighting for drivers and pedestrians. We want to see whether road lighting can influence alertness so that pedestrians and drivers are better able to detect and react to hazards.