[7] He has a PhD from the Open University,[4] his thesis investigated the use of remote sensing in volcanology and was supervised by Peter Francis and David Rothery.
In addition to his volcanological work he discovered two previously lost campsites used by a group of explorers from Scott's Terra Nova expedition in 1912, now recognised as protected sites under the Antarctic Treaty System.
[4][10][11] In 2011, the Government of North Korea invited him, his PhD student Kayla Iacovino, and volcanologist James Hammond of Imperial College, London to study the Baekdu Mountain for recent volcanic activity.
[14] He has also appeared on The Infinite Monkey Cage alongside Jo Brand and Tamsin Mather[15] and Midweek and In Our Time on BBC Radio 4.
[16][17] His publications[1][18] include Eruptions that Shook the World[3][19] which formed the basis of the 2016 film Into the Inferno directed by Werner Herzog.