Rate My Professor Peter Haynes

Professor Peter Haynes is Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Faculty of Mathematics, at the University of Cambridge, where he has held this position since 2001. He served as Head of the Department from 2005 to 2015, following roles as Reader in Atmospheric Science from 1999 to 2000 and University Lecturer from 1991 to 1999. His early career included a Royal Society Meteorological Office Research Fellowship in Dynamical Meteorology from 1986 to 1990 at the same department, after completing a postdoctoral research associateship at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and the Ocean, University of Washington, from 1984 to 1985. Haynes earned his PhD from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, completing in 1983. He is a Professorial Fellow and Director of Studies for Part II Mathematics at Queens' College, Cambridge. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2019, he also received the Maxwell Medal and Prize for Theoretical Physics from the Institute of Physics in 2010. Additionally, he holds a Visiting Professorship at Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées and serves as co-Convenor of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Science.

Haynes' research centers on the large-scale fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and ocean, encompassing wave propagation and breaking and its effects on background flows, transport and mixing of trace species including reacting chemical and biological species, the dynamics of the global circulation, and interactions between dynamics, chemistry, and radiation. These interests apply to both atmospheric and oceanic contexts, with particular attention to processes controlling distributions of chemical species such as ozone and water vapour. His work has advanced understanding of the large-scale circulation in the troposphere and stratosphere and its influence on atmospheric chemistry and climate. Key publications include 'Stratospheric Dynamics' in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics (2005), 'Diagnosing tracer transport in convective penetration of a stably stratified layer' in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2024), 'Moisture transport by convective overshoots in the tropical tropopause layer' in Weather (2025), and 'The Influence of the Stratosphere on the Tropical Troposphere' (2021).