Human Cold Stress

Ken Parsons is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Ergonomics at Loughborough University. He has spent over 30 years conducting laboratory and field research into human cold stress. He was born on January 20, 1953, in northeast England in a coastal village called Seaton Sluice. He was part of the British Schools Exploring Society expedition to Iceland in 1970. He graduated from Loughborough University in ergonomics in 1974, obtained a postgraduate certificate in education in mathematics with a distinction from Hughes Hall, Cambridge University in 1975 and was awarded a PhD in human response to vibration in 1980, from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, Southampton University. He founded the Human Thermal Environments Laboratory at Loughborough in 1981 and was awarded a certificate in management from the Open University in 1993. Ken became head of the Department of Human Sciences in 1996 covering research and teaching in ergonomics, psychology and human biology. He was Dean of Science from 2003 to 2009 and pro-vice chancellor for research from 2009 to 2012. He was chair of the United Kingdom Deans of Science from 2008 to 2010.

In 1992, he received the Ralph G. Nevins award from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) for 'significant accomplishments in the study of bioenvironmental engineering and its impact on human comfort and health'. The Human Thermal Environments laboratory was awarded the President's Medal of the Ergonomics Society in 2001. He is one of the co-authors of the British Occupational Hygiene Society publication on thermal environments and has contributed to the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers publications on thermal comfort as well as to the ASHRAE Handbook: Fundamentals.

He has been a fellow of the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, the International Ergonomics Association and the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a registered European Ergonomist and an elected member to the council of the Ergonomics Society. He has been a scientific advisor to the Defence Evaluation Research Agency and the Defence Clothing and Textile Agency and a member of the Defence Scientific Advisory Committee. He has been both secretary and chair of the thermal factors committee of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH), chair of the CNRS advisory committee to the Laboratoire de Physiologie et Psychologie Environmentales in Strasbourg, France, and is a life member of the Indian Ergonomics Society. He was a visiting professor to Chalmers University in Sweden and is a member of the committee of the International Conference on Environmental Ergonomics. He was an advisor to the World Health Organization on heatwaves and a visiting professor to Chongqing University in China, where he was leading academic to the National Centre for International Research of Low Carbon and Green Buildings. He was scientific editor and co-editor in chief of the journal Applied Ergonomics for 33 years and is on the editorial boards of the journals Industrial Health, Annals of Occupational Hygiene and Physiological Anthropology.

He is co-founder of the United Kingdom Indoor Environments Group and a founding member of the UK Clothing Science Group, the European Society for Protective Clothing, the Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings and the thermal factors scientific committee of the ICOH. He was chair of ISO TC 159 SC5 'Ergonomics of the Physical Environment' for over 20 years and is convenor to the ISO working group on integrated environments, chair of the British Standards Institution committee on the ergonomics of the physical environment and convenor of CEN TC 122 WG11, which is the European standards committee concerned with the ergonomics of the physical environment.