Research

I am a quantitative palaeoecologist, specialising in the study of diatoms (siliceous microalgae) in a wide range of aquatic environments from inland freshwater and saline lakes, to coastal fjords and lagoons. My main research interest lies in using sediment records from lakes, fjords and estuaries to explore the nature of past environmental change under changing climatic regimes and cultural impacts. Key research interests focus on a long-term perspective on the development, variability and response of aquatic environments and nutrient cycles (Si, C, P) to both natural and anthropogenic drivers (e.g. eutrophication) on inland and coastal systems. As well as in the UK, I have worked on sites in North America, Italy, Denmark, Greenland, Siberia (Lake Baikal) and East Africa (Uganda, Ethiopia) supported by funding from NERC, NSF, Danida and the Carlsberg Foundation, for example.

One theme that runs through my research is the critical analysis of palaeoenvironmental data and methodologies. I am especially interested in the transformation of living diatom communities to fossil assemblages, using limnological monitoring, sediment traps and experimental study data to inform and improve palaeoenvironmental inferences. More recent NERC-funded research has focussed on testing the application of stable isotopes in diatom silica (18O and 30Si) as proxies for lake hydrology and productivity; and combining archaeological and environmental science in Danish Baltic coastal sites to test hypotheses concerning human diet and patterns of subsistence, and changes in the marine environment over key periods in the Holocene. This last topic is the focus of a current Leverhulme Project Grant (“Stories of subsistence: people and coast over the last 6,000 years in the Limfjord, Denmark”) involving researchers in Queen’s University Belfast, Aarhus University and Copenhagen University.