I am a palaeoclimatologist and isotope geochemist. That means I am interested in past climates and the use of chemical tracers in sediments to develop our understanding of past climate changes. I mostly work with lake sediments, but also work in terrestrial, marine, estuarine and cave environments.
Mainly, I am interested in developing isotope-based tools for quantifying past climate variability. This involves field and experimental studies on modern systems. I then apply these techniques to examine the patterns and causes of past climate change, in regions as diverse as coastal Antarctica, central Australia and Japan. In 2024 I will start an ARC Future Fellowship, which aims to better understand climate variability in southern Australia through the last 2000 years, with a view to providing data and knowledge relevant to policy makers and environmental managers. Similarly, I am actively researching the interplay between climate variability and changing vegetation and fire regimes in order to better understand bushfire risks and mitigation strategies, most notably on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.