David is Professor of Risk Management and co-Director of the Centre for Decision Analysis and Risk Management (DARM) with Associate Professor John Watt. Prior to joining Middlesex in 1997 he was Director of the Centre for Environmental and Risk Management at UEA. David has a BSc (Exeter) and DPhil (Sussex) in physics. For the past 35 years he has pursued a multidisciplinary approach to decision making and risk management across a very wide range of applications. These include environmental pollution, the energy industries, transport, and occupational and public safety.
He has acted as a consultant on decision making for most government departments and safety regulators, and for international agencies and the private sector on safety issues. For example, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), the Department of Health, DEFRA, the European Consumer Safety Association (ECOSA), the World Health Organisation, the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the UK Chief Scientist's advisory group on major hazards.
His work is recorded in several books and over two hundreds reports and papers
Professional Memberships:
Fellow of the Institute of Physics
Chartered Fellow of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health
Member of the Society for Risk Analysis
Learning & Teaching Interests
David teaches primarily on the MSc Risk Management programme, also contributing to other programmes entailing decision making and risk.
Research Outputs & Interests
Throughout his career David has been interested in the transference of knowledge across the academic - public/private divide. Consequently, he is very closely involved with external agencies with interests in the management of risk and this experience feeds back into his teaching.
External agencies include education authorities, local government, the legal profession, environmental groups, organisations working in sport and leisure activities and countryside management, the energy industries, and industry in general. He also has close involvement with the legal sector.
Books and Publications(selected)
Ball, D. J. and Ball-King, L. N. (2011) Public safety and risk assessment - improving decision making. Earthscan/Routledge. ISBN 978-1-84971-381-8
Ball, D. J. (2006) Environmental health policy. Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-21843-1
Spiegal, B., Gill, T. R., Harbottle, H. and Ball, D. J. (2014) Children's play space and safety management: rethinking the role of play equipment standards, SAGEopen, 11 February 2014, DOI: 10.1177/2158244014522075.
Ball, D. J. and Watt, J. (2013) Further thoughts on the utility of risk matrices, Risk Analysis 33(13): 2068-2078.
Ball, D. J. and Ball-King, L. N. (2013) Safety management and public spaces: restoring balance, 2013, Risk Analysis 33(5): 763-771.
Ball, D. J. and Watt, J. (2013) The risk to the public of tree fall, J. Risk Research 16(1-2): 261-269
Ball, D. J., Gill, T. R. and Spiegal, B. (2013) Managing risk in play provision: Implementation guide, second edition, National Children's Bureau: London.
Ball, D. J. (2006) Deliberating over Britain's Nuclear Waste, J Risk Research 2006, 9(1), 1-11.
Patel, J., Ball, D. J. and Jones. H. (2008) Factors influencing subjective rankings of driver distractions, Accident Analysis and Prevention 2008, 40: 392-395.
