I am Associate Professor of Quaternary environmental change, and have a strong research emphasis on sea-level change. I have expertise in developing records of past sea level from estuarine deposits along with high-precision dating, to understand the magnitude, timing and driving mechanisms of relative sea-level changes over a range of timescales. My current research particularly focuses on sea level during interglacial periods, where I am aiming to establish reconstructions of sea-level change from temperate latitudes, which will in turn help improve predictions of long-term future coastal response and ice-sheet mass-balance changes. I am currently PI on the European Research Council Starting Grant (€2 million) RISeR project, furthering my research in this area. Recently I have focused on submarine landscapes, conducting research with geophysical datasets and cores to better understand palaeo-landscapes, 3D-stratigraphy and sediment mobility, in particular to support the development of a sustainable offshore wind industry. I am Co-I on the NERC-funded ‘Carbon storage in intertidal environments’ (C-SIDE) project, and have an interest in how palaeo landscapes act as carbon sinks and their potential for carbon release.
I have worked on both passive and active coastal margins developing quantitative reconstructions of near-instantaneous to multi-millennial scale sea-level changes, as well as having experience of glacial isostastic adjustment modeling. My wider research interest is the driving mechanisms of change, in particular that associated with ice sheets, climate and large earthquakes, with the aim of understanding future hazards. In addition to my research I am a co-leader of PALSEA, an international working which group brings together observational scientists and ice-sheet, climate, and sea-level modelers in order to better define observational constraints on past sea-level change and improve our understanding of ice-sheet responses to rapid climate change. I also co-founded and lead the cross-School Leeds Quaternary research group. I am a former leader of the QRA Sea-level and coastal change working group, and in 2019 I was awarded the Quaternary Research Association Lewis Penny Medal.
Role: Associate Professor | Leader of Leeds Quaternary
Field of Research: Quaternary environmental change
Areas of Expertise: Quaternary Geology, Palaeoecology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Seismics