chemistry

Roy M. Harrison

Roy M. Harrison is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Roy M. Harrison rather than just read about it. In short: Roy Michael Harrison (born 14 October 1948) is a British environmental scientist. He has been Queen Elizabeth II Birmingham Centenary Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham since 1991, and is a distinguished adjunct professor at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Key takeaways

Roy M. Harrison belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Roy M. Harrison to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Roy M. Harrison from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Roy Michael Harrison (born 14 October 1948) is a British environmental scientist. He has been Queen Elizabeth II Birmingham Centenary Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham since 1991, and is a distinguished adjunct professor at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Early life and education Roy Michael Harrison was born on 14 October 1948 to Wilfred and Rosa Harrison (née Cotton). He was educated at Henley Grammar School and the University of Birmingham, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry in 1969, followed by a PhD in organic chemistry in 1972 and a Doctor of Science degree in environmental chemistry in 1989. His PhD research investigated sigmatropic reactions of tropolone ethers.

Research and career Harrison is an expert on air pollution, specialising in the area of airborne particulates, including nanoparticles. His interests extend from source emissions, through atmospheric chemical and physical transformations, to human exposures and effects upon health. His most significant work has been in the field of vehicle emitted particles, including their chemical composition and atmospheric processing. This forms the basis of the current understanding of the relationship of emissions to roadside concentrations and size distributions. In addition to leading a large project on diesel exhaust particles, he is also engaged in major collaborative studies of processes determining air quality in Beijing and Delhi.

Awards and honours Harrison's work has been recognised by award of the John Jeyes Medal and Environment Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Fitzroy Prize of the Royal Meteorological Society. He has served for many years as a chair and/or member of advisory committees of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department of Health. He was appointed Order of the British Empire OBE in the 2004 New Year Honours for services to environmental science and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2017.

Personal life Harrison married Angela Copeman in 1981. After their divorce, he married Susan Sturt in 1989. Harrison has a son and a daughter from his first marriage, and a son from his second. He enjoys "mowing and other outdoor pursuits".

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roy M. Harrison

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roy M. Harrison claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Roy M. Harrison before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Roy M. Harrison ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Roy M. Harrison

In research: Roy M. Harrison appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Roy M. Harrison in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Roy M. Harrison is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 births, 20th-century British chemists, 21st-century British chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roy M. Harrison outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Roy M. Harrison in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Roy M. Harrison means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Roy M. Harrison out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Roy M. Harrison in simple terms?

Why does Roy M. Harrison matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Roy M. Harrison?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Roy M. Harrison.