Research Focus

I am a physical geographer who uses geo-historic data to unravel how ecosystems, particularly biodiversity hotspots, respond to various drivers of change (notably climate, fire, and human disturbance) over long timescales. My specialization is in palynology, which is a sub-discipline of geography that uses plant pollen and spores as well as charcoal preserved in sediment layers to reconstruct past ecological change through time. I aim to use my research to support the conservation of resilient and thriving socio-ecological systems. 

Curriculum Vitae

I currently work as a research fellow at the Australian National University and the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthrology in Jena, Germany. My primary research forms of part of the ‘PANTROPOCENE’ research group, lead by Dr. Patrick Roberts, and focuses on assessing the degree to which combined pre-colonial/ colonial disturbance impacted the structure and composition of tropical rainforest in the bounds of the former Spanish Empire.

In 2019, I was awarded the Merewether Fellowship at the State Library of NSW (Australia). This project – ‘Conservation mapping: a case study of Sydney’s 19th century water reserves’ – marries historical and palaeoecological data to determine the actual history of remnant freshwater wetlands within Sydney’s urban core that are protected on the basis of their representing the pre-European landscape.

Between 2017 and 2019, I worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Australian National University on an Australian Research Council funded project ‘The pace and rhythm of climate: 600,000 years in biological hotspot’ under CI A/Prof Janelle Stevenson. My research focused on reconstructing the floristic and fire history of Sulawesi’s lowland tropical rainforest over a million years. This work presents the longest terrestrial record of forest-fire dynamics from insular south-east Asia, and, along with complimentary research stemming from the ICDP-funded Towuti Drilling Project (lead by J. Russell) reveals the response of the Indo-Pacific-Warm-Pool to global climate change.

I completed my Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Sydney 2017. My thesis used palaeoenvironmental techniques to examine the long-term impact of climate and fire on the resilience of south-east Asian tropical monsoon forests over thousands of years.