Rate My Professor Christopher Hackney

Dr Christopher Hackney is a Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University. He obtained a BSc in Physical Geography (hons) from the University of Southampton in 2009 and a PhD from the same institution in 2013, with a thesis focused on modelling the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on the evolution of incised coastal gullies. Following his doctorate, he served as a Post-doctoral Research Associate on a NERC-funded project investigating sediment transport and erosion in large alluvial rivers at the University of Southampton until 2015. He then held a fixed-term Lecturer position in Physical Geography at Southampton from 2015 to 2016 before moving to the University of Hull as a Fellow in Earth Surface Processes and Sedimentology from 2016 to 2020. Since 2020, he has been based at Newcastle University, initially as a NUAcT Fellow and subsequently as Senior Lecturer.

Dr Hackney’s research centres on sediment and water transport through river and delta systems, with particular emphasis on South East Asian deltas including the Mekong, Red and Irrawaddy. His work examines human alterations to natural fluvial processes, especially the impacts of sand mining on flow, sediment dynamics, riverbank stability and flood risk, as well as the transport of plastic waste through river systems and links between physical processes and societal resilience. He is a National Geographic Explorer and has secured funding from UKRI, the Royal Society and National Geographic. He contributes to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and supervises research students on topics related to delta morphology, invasive species and climate adaptation. His publications include articles in journals such as Nature Sustainability and Earth Surface Dynamics, and he has co-edited a volume on river to reservoir geoscience.