Department of Geography
Staff

Professor Derek Mottershead
- Qualifications: BA (Hons) Geography; London (1965), PhD London (1971)
- Role Title: Visiting Research Fellow
- Address: Department of Geography University of Portsmouth Buckingham Building Lion Terrace Portsmouth PO1 3HE
- Telephone: +44 23 9284 2468
- Email: derek.mottershead@port.ac.uk
- Department: Geography
- Faculty: Science
Biography
Following undergraduate and postgraduate studies at King’s College London, I was appointed lecturer in Geography at Portsmouth College of Technology (later Polytechnic) in 1967. After a 13 year stint as lecturer/senior lecturer, I took up a post as Head of Geography at Edge Hill College of Higher Education (later University), latterly managing the 1997 Research Assessment Exercise. During that time I held several external examinerships and served on HEFCE external programme review panels. I have both supervised and externally examined PhD students. I retired from fulltime employment in 1997 and held research fellowships and part-time teaching posts at Manchester Metropolitan University, Liverpool John Moores University, Leicester University and Staffordshire University. I returned to Portsmouth University in 2002, where I have since held a range of part-time teaching, research fellow and research associate positions.
Research
As an early career researcher I studied in periglacial and glacial environments. I subsequently moved into rock weathering, with a particular focus on the coastal environment. Latterly I have extended my coastal interest into tsunami research, in association with Portsmouth colleagues.