Dr Thomas Wilkes

School of Geography and Planning

Lecturer in Volcanology

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tcwilkes1@sheffield.ac.uk

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Dr Thomas Wilkes
School of Geography and Planning
Geography and Planning Building
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
Profile

Thomas graduated in Environmental Geoscience (MSci) from The University of Bristol in 2014, before carrying out a research placement in volcanology at Colima de Intercambio en Investigación en Vulcanología, Mexico. He joined The University of Sheffield in 2015, where he completed a PhD on the development of low-cost remote sensing instruments for application in volcano monitoring. He subsequently completed post-doctoral research and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Sheffield, focussing on wider dissemination of permanent SO2 cameras and their use in volcanology.

In 2023 he became a Lecturer in Volcanology at the University. His research interests span volcanology, remote sensing, and the use of machine learning within these fields. He has led the development of a software library, PyCamPermanent, for SO2 camera control and data processing, which is used by a number of researchers and monitoring organisations around the world.

Research interests

I began my academic career as a geoscientist but through my PhD I have developed further skills and interests in software engineering (predominantly in Python), instrument design and optical design. My work therefore spans a broad range of fields, with the overarching focus on using remote sensing techniques to improve our understanding of volcanic activity. 

Publications

Journal articles

Other

Preprints

Teaching activities

I have taught on a range of modules during my time at Sheffield. As a graduate teaching assistant I acquired experience marking and providing lab- and desk-based teaching assistance, as well as fieldwork assistance. Now, as an active member of the department’s teaching team, I am involved in course delivery and content design.

Current modules:

GEO3004 - Applied Volcanology