Dr Alan Richardson is the Associate Dean for Academic Operations in the School of Education, Sport and Health Sciences. Previously Alan has been Subject Lead for the Sport & Physical Activity Area and Course Leader for the Sport and Exercise Science course at the University of Brighton. His teaching and research focuses on the physiological changes and human tolerance to severe stressors, whether this be heat, hypoxia, endurance activity or recovery from critical illness.

While completing his PhD at the University of Brighton (2010), Alan worked as a research exercise physiologist on the Centre for Aviation, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine Xtreme Everest Project in 2007 and 2009, carrying out cardiopulmonary exercise testing in trekkers ascending to Everest Base Camp. He then went on to work as a Clinical Exercise Physiologist at UCLH using CPET for operative assessment.  Alan joined the University of Brighton as a Lecturer in Exercise Physiology in 2008.

Alan's research focuses on how the human body tolerates or adapts to physiological extremes. This can have a number of applications such as the use of altitude training for elite athletes, to hypoxic exposure as a means of weight loss, the use of exercise for rehabilitation of critically ill, through to repeated extreme heat exposure potentially causing cellular damage in Fire Instructors. The work of our Environmental Extremes Research Group can be found here.

Alan has previously worked on a number of projects with UK and international firefighters on reducing the health impact of severe thermal and contaminant exposure. Information on the current and past projects can be found here. 

During 2020/21 Alan worked on a COVID19 recovery time course and rehabilitation project with hospitals around the South East of England. This project explored the time course of cardiopulmonary and functional capacity improvement in previously critically ill patients. 

At present i am currently looking to help supervise students interested in the following projects:

• Remote monitoring of recovery from critical illness rehabilitation.
• Exercise and physical activity for prehabilitation
• Real time health and performance evaluation of athletes during mass participation endurance activities. 
• Evaluating the consequence of exposure loads for occupational and health based applications.