Fellow 2005-2009
Bye-Fellow 2011-12
Royal Society University Research Fellow
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The earth's climate changes continuously over a wide range of time-scales. We know this because the effects of past climate changes have been varied and intense enough to leave their imprint on the geological record. It is the task of Quaternary palaeoclimatologists (i.e. geologists who deal in mud, rather than rocks) to seek out the geological clues (in lakes, bogs, caves, ice-cores and in sediments from the bottom of the sea) that may allow us to broaden our view of the climate system beyond the remit of direct (historical) observation. It was to learn more about this field of research, and undertake an MPhil course in Quaternary Science, that I came to Cambridge in 1999. Previously, I had completed an undergraduate degree in Geological Engineering (Queen's University, Canada), and after finishing the MPhil course here in Cambridge, I began a PhD project studying the causes and effects of past climate changes in the North Atlantic region, including in particular abrupt changes in the intensity of the ocean circulation cell that includes the Gulf Stream. Currently, I am carrying on this research as a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences, where my most immediate research task is to investigate how ocean circulation changes may be linked to the melting or collapse of polar ice-sheets and to variations in global atmospheric Carbon-14 and Carbon Dioxide concentrations.