Our Staff Profiles
Here is a selection of our sector-leading expert academic staff from across our land-based, sports, science and engineering provision.
Dr. Andrew Hirons
Senior Lecturer - Arboriculture
Andrew D. Hirons is a Senior Lecturer in Arboriculture at Myerscough College, UK. He began his career in arboriculture as a climbing arborist and plant health care technician, gaining experience in Australia, America and the UK before joining the arboriculture department at Myerscough College in 2004. As well as acting as a Course Tutor for the Online Foundation Degree in Arboriculture and Tree Management, he teaches modules relating to tree biology, tree establishment and tree management. His current research activity is motivated by the need to create resilience in our urban forests, and is focused on using plant traits to inform species selection for urban environments.
Tree Selection for Green Infrastructure is now available to download (link below). This digital guidance aims to help you select appropriate trees for your planting scheme. A series of chapters provide a commentary on the interpretation of this guide and tree species selection for green infrastructure. Specific information on over 280 trees, illustrated with over 800 photographs, is included in the Tree Profiles section. A Tree Selector tool also helps you identify candidate trees by a range of criteria.
Charlotte Brigden
HE Quality Lead
Before moving into teaching, Charlotte worked in the practical equine industry, including at an Olympic Dressage Rider’s yard, a leading sports horse stud and the Thoroughbred Rehabilitation Centre (now the British Thoroughbred Rehabilitation Centre). She then moved into the commercial sector, working as Research and Development Coordinator for Tangerine Holdings.
Charlotte’s current and previous research projects include biomechanics focussed studies collaborating with Professor Sarah Hobbs from UCLan; an example of which was an analysis of risk factors for falls in eventing (a PhD project), a project that analysed data from British Eventing.
She is now a PhD student, part of the People and Animals and Their Health in Society (PATHS) research group at the School of Veterinary Science, University of Liverpool. Her PhD study, titled “Horse owners’ lived experiences of the death of a horse”, aims to conduct a detailed examination of the impact of horse deaths on owners with the intention of providing a better understanding of this experience and ways in which owners can be better supported. With colleagues from the PATHS group, she’s recently completed a project funded by The Horse Trust that explored leisure horse owners’ perceptions of quality of life.
She also works closely with the Advancing Equine Science Excellence group to supervise student and staff projects on behalf of industry partners. Previous projects have included an analysis of the impact of the Covid pandemic on Riding for the Disabled Association’s stakeholders, and project with The British Horse Society investigating the impact of the pandemic on calls to their advice centre. A current project with The Horse Trust examines the horse health records of the centre’s past and current residents.