Dr Craig Warren

Associate Professor

School: Engineering, Physics and Mathematics

I am an Associate Professor and Head of Subject for Engineering in the School of Engineering, Physics and Mathematics. I joined Northumbria in 2017, following seven years at the University of Edinburgh, where I earned my degrees in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (BEng Hons, 2003) and Civil Engineering (PhD, 2009).

As Head of Subject for Engineering, I provide academic leadership across the School's engineering disciplines — Aerospace, Automotive, Civil, Electrical, and Mechanical — with responsibility for the quality and development of our teaching programmes and staff. Alongside this, I am committed to research-informed teaching, bringing the questions and methods of live research into the classroom.

My research sits at the interface of computational electromagnetics and geophysical sensing, tackling a fundamental inverse problem: inferring the structure of the subsurface from the scattered electromagnetic field measured at the surface — quantitatively, reliably, and at scale. It matters for some of the largest challenges we face: ageing infrastructure, a warming climate destabilising the far North, and the exploration of other worlds.

Away from research, I am a petrol-head and a wannabe rock drummer.

Campus Address

101 Sandyford Building

0191 227 3633

Email Craig

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

I develop the computational modelling and optimisation methods that underpin GPR, and am lead developer of the open-source software gprMax. Much of my current work concerns the role of open, physics-based simulation as machine learning takes on more of the interpretation of GPR data — ensuring these methods stay transparent and reproducible.

My research spans three strands:

Sensing for infrastructure resilience — simulation tools to characterise ageing, poorly-mapped infrastructure, from railway trackbeds to urban utilities, developed with industry partners.
Geophysical characterisation of permafrost and frozen ground — fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic to image permafrost and ground ice in four dimensions, resolving how frozen ground evolves as the climate warms.
Planetary subsurface radar — modelling to interpret radar sounding of other worlds, including NASA's RIMFAX instrument aboard the Perseverance rover on Mars.

Cutting across all three is a commitment to open, trustworthy research software.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
gprMax: Open source software to simulate electromagnetic wave propagation for ground penetrating radar, Warren, C., Giannopoulos, A., Giannakis, I. 8 Sep 2016, In: Computer Physics Communications
A CUDA-based GPU engine for gprMax: open source FDTD electromagnetic simulation software, Warren, C., Giannopoulos, A., Gray, A., Giannakis, I., Patterson, A., Wetter, L., Hamrah, A. 1 Apr 2019, In: Computer Physics Communications
A Machine Learning-Based Fast-Forward Solver for Ground Penetrating Radar With Application to Full-Waveform Inversion, Giannakis, I., Giannopoulos, A., Warren, C. Jul 2019, In: IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Realistic FDTD GPR antenna models optimized using a novel linear/nonlinear Full-Waveform Inversion, Giannakis, I., Giannopoulos, A., Warren, C. Mar 2019, In: IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Investigating the radar response of englacial debris entrained basal ice units in East Antarctica using electromagnetic forward modelling, Franke, S., Gerber, T., Warren, C., Jansen, D., Eisen, O., Dahl-Jensen, D. 2023, In: IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing

Professional Activity

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Visiting an external academic institution: Jülich Research Centre 2017
Membership of network: COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) (External organisation) 2014
Membership of council: Institution of Mechanical Engineers (External organisation) 2013
Membership of council: The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) (External organisation) 2011

PGR Supervision

Georgia Coote Engineered ground in a warming Arctic: surface deformation, permafrost degradation and diagnostic geophysics across Inuvialuit communities Start Date: 01/07/2024
Gareth Buhl Drone-borne radar for sustainable monitoring of permafrost thaw and carbon emissions Start Date: 01/10/2026
Georgia Coote Infrastructure resilience in a rapidly changing landscape Start Date: 01/07/2024 End Date: 17/10/2025
Zachary Wilson What lies beneath the surface of Mars? Advanced Numerical Modelling and Data Intensive Processing for Large and Complex Ground Penetrating Radar Data Start Date: 23/09/2024
Luke MacPherson Where is the permafrost? Multi-method geophysics to characterise frozen ground in complex tundra environments Start Date: 01/10/2024
Zachary Wilson What lies beneath the surface of Mars? Advanced Numerical Modelling and Data Intensive Processing for Large and Complex Ground Penetrating Radar Data Start Date: 23/09/2024 End Date: 17/10/2025
Luke MacPherson Where is the permafrost? High resolution 3D mapping of ground ice in the Arctic Start Date: 01/10/2024 End Date: 17/10/2025

Further Information

Impact and reach
gprMax is the most widely used tool in the world for simulating Ground Penetrating Radar, adopted across academia, industry, and government agencies including NASA, the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, and Google Fiber.

Esteem and leadership
In June 2026 I was General Chair of the 21st International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR2026), hosted at Northumbria. I hold an active Knowledge Transfer Partnership with industry on railway trackbed inspection, and a funding track record spanning EPSRC, NERC, Innovate UK, the Royal Society, and European programmes. I was previously a workgroup project leader in COST Action TU1208, "Civil Engineering Applications of GPR".

Professional memberships