Dr Catherine L. Muller BSc, MSc, PhD

Catherine Muller

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Research Fellow
(Guest Lecturer)

Contact details

Address
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Catherine Muller is currently working on the NERC-funded ‘HiTemp’ project examining Birmingham’s urban heat island using a dense network of air temperature sensors which forms part of the Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory (BUCL), along with a number of TSB-funded projects utilising the data from this network as well as crowdsourcing side-projects. During her doctoral research, Catherine examined the impact of urban areas on clouds and precipitation using a range of remote sensing, in situ and laboratory techniques. In addition, she is involved with educational outreach, teaching, public engagement and knowledge transfer activities.

Qualifications

  • BSc (Hons) Environmental Science (1st class) – University of Birmingham (2001-2004)
  • MSc (Hons) Applied Meteorology and Climatology (Distinction) – University of Birmingham (2004-2005)
  • PhD in Atmospheric Science / Meteorology – University of Birmingham (2005-2008). Thesis: "A Microscale Study of Clouds and Precipitation over Birmingham, UK"

Teaching

Catherine has led, redeveloped and taught a post-graduate module, in addition to undergraduate modules, including remote sensing. She has also conducted seminar classes, conducted open-air tutorials and supervised urban climatology projects on undergraduate field trips. Catherine is also involved in educational and pedagogic research and innovative approaches to teaching and learning, including the use of sensors and technology. 

Applied Meteorology and Climatology Masters course: M3 Atmospheric Data Processing & Statistics (M3b Programming component)

Related Publication:

Muller, C.L. and Kidd, C. (2014) Debugging Geographers: Teaching Programming to Non-Computer Scientists, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, in press

Other activities

Knowledge Transfer

Catherine is keen to see her research activities incorporated operationally for the benefit of society. In order to achieve this she works with the TSB Knowledge Transfer Network and numerous industrial partners, including Birmingham City Council, AMEY, Western Power, Severn Trent and Space industries, as well as a number of SMEs and other academic institutes. She has also developed Earth Observation and Remote Sensing training materials for SMEs as part of the G-STEP project at University of Leicester, and is currently involved in three KT-related projects.

Related Funding:

  • PI: TSB ‘Internet of Things’ Competition demonstrator funding - Demonstrating the Internet of School Things – A National Collaborative Experience (DISTANCE) consortium (UoB: £68,863, 02/2013). Partners include Intel, Cosm, the OU, the geography collective and ScienceScope
  • Co-I: TSB ‘Internet of Things’ Competition demonstrator funding - Smart Streets consortium (UoB: £68,863, 02/2013).  In Touch Limited is the  project lead. UoB will provide the real-time weather data and expertise
  • Co-I: NERC 'Environmatal Data Call' - Sustainable Urban Meteorological Networks: Managing the Legacy of the Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory (SUMNs) (£13k, 06/2013). 

Educational Outreach and Public Engagement

Catherine carries out a number of educational outreach (key stages 1-5) and public engagements activities, including:

  • Her involvement with the Space Academy at University of Leicester and the National Space Centre
  • STEM workshops and masterclasses for KS 1-5 (Earth Observations; Climate Change; Weather and Climate; Remote sensing; GIS; Urban meteorology)
  • Websites/e-learning/computer-based practicals
  • Social Media (@BUCL_HiTemp, BUCL facebook page)
  • Press releases
  • Career events / talks / outreach events
  • Mentoring, tutoring and work experience
  • Teacher CPD workshops
  • Podcasts: http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/multimedia/story.aspx?id=1252

Public Engagement Funding:

  • PI: UK Space Agency 'Space for All' Sponsorship Scheme 2012/13 (£2,040.00, SFA2011-024): 'Hot Cities: Monitoring the Health of our Cities from Space!' Hands-on workshops for KS 1-3 and teachers to introduce urban climatology and thermal remote sensing of cities.
  • PI: UK Space Agency 'Space for All' Sponsorship Scheme 2010/11 (£3,386.52): 'The Blue Marble: Monitoring Earth from Space' Inter-disciplinary, hands-on materclasses for KS 1 & 2 to introduce Earth Observations, Global Navigation and applications.
  • PI: RCUK National Science and Engineering Week Awards 2010 (£1,692.08): 'Observing Planet Earth: You can be a scientist!' An inter-disciplinary, hands-on introduction to Earth Observation Science (EOS) and applications for Key Stage 4 physics, chemistry and biology students, incorporating demonstrations and activities. 

Related Publications and Proceedings:

Muller, C.L., Roberts, S., Remedios, J.J., Henderson, J., Wilkinson, J., Wilkinson, M., Illingworth, S., Greaves, R. (2013) The Blue Marble: A Model for Primary School STEM Outreach, Physics Education, vol. 48, p. 176

Roberts, S.J., Muller, C.L., Knight, P.T. & Ojha, A. (2010) SpaceAcademy: Developing Geospatial Capability in UK Schools – The Role of Open Source GIS, Google Earth, Google Forms and the Global Positioning System, Open Source GIS Conference 2010,University of Nottingham, 21st-22nd June 2010

Muller, C.L., S. Roberts, A.Wells, A. Ojha, C. Bishop, J.J. Remedios, T.Moore, A. Edwards,(2010) East Midlands, UK: Communication, Education and Training Activities, NEREUS CET workshop, Toulouse Space Show 2010, 8th-11th June 2010

Muller, C.L. (2010) Geospatial Data and Technology in the Classroom: Multispectral remote Sensing workshop, Space Conference for Science Teachers,Leicester, 24th-16th April 2010

Ojha, A., Williamson, R., Muller, C.L., Hill, S. (2010) Space Academy Workshop, Space Exploration Education Conference, NASA Houston, February 2010

Roberts, S. and Muller, C.L. (2010) Using the Global Positioning System in the Science Classroom, Association for Science Education Annual Conference 2010,Nottingham, 6-9 January 2010

Muller, C.L., Ojha, A., Hill, S., Remedios, J.J., Moore, T., Wells, A.,Barstow, M., Jarvis, T., Brown, C., Allen, S., Green, J., Althorpe, S., Williamson, R., Carr, C., Knight, P. (2009) SPACE ACADEMY: Using Earth Observations in Science Teaching, RSPSoc conference 2009, Leicester, 7th - 11th Sept 2009

Professional Memberships

  • Royal Meteorological Society Associate Member
  • American Meteorological Society 

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Warren, E, Chapman, L, Young, D, Muller, C, Cai, X & Grimmond, CSB 2016, 'Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory - A high density, urban meteorological dataset, from 2012 -2014', Scientific Data, vol. 3, 160038 . https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.38

Antunes De Azevedo, J, Chapman, L & Muller, C 2016, 'Quantifying the daytime and night-time urban heat island in Birmingham, UK: A comparison of satellite derived land surface temperature and high resolution ground measured air temperature', Remote Sensing, vol. 8, no. 2, 153. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs8020153

Antunes De Azevedo, J, Chapman, L & Muller, C 2016, 'Urban heat and residential electricity consumption: a preliminary study', Applied Geography, vol. 70, pp. 59-67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2016.03.002

Antunes De Azevedo, J, Chapman, L & Muller, C 2015, 'Critique and suggested modifications of the degree day methodology to enable long term electricity consumption assessments; a case study in Birmingham, UK', Meteorological Applications, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 789-796. https://doi.org/10.1002/met.1525

Muller, C, Chapman, L, Johnston, S, Kidd, C, Illingworth, S, Foody, G, Overeem, A & Leigh, R 2015, 'Crowdsourcing for climate and atmospheric sciences: current status and future potential', International Journal of Climatology, vol. 35, no. 11, pp. 3185–3203. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4210

Muller, CL, Baker, A, Fairchild, IJ, Kidd, C & Boomer, I 2015, 'Intra-event trends in stable isotopes: Exploring midlatitude precipitation using a vertically pointing micro rain radar', Journal of Hydrometeorology, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 194-213. https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-14-0038.1

Chapman, L, Muller, C, Young, D, Warren, E, Grimmond, CSB, Cai, X & Sakamoto Ferranti, E 2015, 'The Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory: an open meteorological test bed and challenges of the smart city', Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 96, no. 9, pp. 1545-1560. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00193.1

Young, D, Chapman, L, Muller, C, Grimmond, CSB & Cai, X 2014, 'A low-cost wireless temperature sensor: evaluation for use in environmental monitoring applications', Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, vol. 31, pp. 938-944. https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-13-00217.1

Illingworth, SM, Muller, C, Graves, R & Chapman, L 2014, 'UK Citizen Rainfall Network : a pilot study', Weather, vol. 69, no. 8, pp. 203–207. https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.2244

Muller, C 2013, 'Mapping snow depth across the West Midlands using social media-generated data', Weather, vol. 68, no. 3.

Muller, C, Chapman, L, Grimmond, CSB, Young, D & Cai, X 2013, 'Sensors and the city : a review of urban meteorological networks', International Journal of Climatology, vol. 33, no. 7, pp. 1585–1600. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3678

Muller, C 2013, 'The Blue Marble : a model for primary school STEM outreach', Physics Education, vol. 48, no. 2, 176. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9120/48/2/176

Muller, CL, Chapman, L, Grimmond, CSB, Young, DT & Cai, X 2013, 'Towards a standardised metadata protocol for urban meteorological networks', Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 94, pp. 1161-1185. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00096.1

Abstract

Muller, C, Chapman, L, Young, D, Grimmond, CSB & Cai, X 2013, 'Birmingham Urban Climate Laboratory (BUCL): experiences, challenges and applications of an urban temperature network', Geophysical Research Abstracts, pp. EGU2013-3325. <http://www.geophysical-research-abstracts.net/volumes.html>

Conference contribution

Chapman, L, Muller, C, Young, D, Warren, E, Grimmond, CSB, Cai, X & Sakamoto Ferranti, E 2015, Urban Meteorological Networks: The urban climatologists. in 9th International Conference on Urban Climate jointly with 12th Symposium on the Urban Environment. 9th International Conference on Urban Climate jointly with 12th Symposium on the Urban Environment, Toulouse, France, 20/07/15.

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