News Archive

New Professor of Human Geography – University of Reading

Professor Robert Potter BSc PhD (Lond) has been appointed to the chair of Professor of Human Geography at the University from 1 January 2003. Professor Potter was formerly Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he was Head of Department from January 1994 to August 1999. From its establishment in1988, through to September 1992, he was Director of the Centre for Developing Areas Research (CEDAR), a position to which he returned in October 2001.

Currently, he is researching the social dynamics of 'foreign-born' and 'young' returning nationals to the Caribbean (with Dr Joan Phillips as Postdoctoral Research Fellow, funded by the Leverhulme Trust), and the nature and evolution of environmental planning imperatives in the Caribbean under the neo-liberal world order (with Dr Jon Pugh, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, funded by ESRC). He is also concerned with the interplay of global forces and local urban responses in the Caribbean region, including the development of 'compound urban regions', along with wider aspects of urbanisation, planning and change in the Developing World.

In the recent past he has worked on aspects of modernity, post-modernity and development in the Caribbean, and on the interface between geography and development studies. His teaching interests span geographies of development, urbanisation and planning in the Developing World, and urban studies.

He has acted as consultant to the Government of Barbados and the Inter-American Development Bank in connection with the preparation of the third National Physical Development Plan for Barbados. He has served on the committees of the Developing Areas Research Group, the Higher Education Study Group and the Social and Cultural Geography Study Group of the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers. He is funding Editor of the multidisciplinary Journal, Progress in Development Studies, published by Arnold. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Third World Quarterly and the Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies.

For further details, please contact Sue Rayner or Carol Derham on 0118 378 8004/5 Fax 0118 931 8924; e-mail s.j.rayner@reading.ac.uk c.a.derham@reading.ac.uk