51cg

Biography

• Senior Lecturer in Geography, School of Geosciences, 51cg (2018-)
• Lecturer in Geography, School of Geosciences, 51cg (2007-18)
• Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, School of Geosciences, 51cg (2004-07)
• Post-Doctoral Research Assistant, School of Earth Sciences and Geography, Kingston University (2002-04)
• Research Assistant, Wetland Archaeology and Environments Research Centre, University of Hull (2002)

Research Overview

• Reconstructing past environments (specialising in palynology)
• Viking settlement across the North Atlantic islands, with an emphasis on the Norse colonisation of Greenland
• Human-environment relationships through prehistory and into the late Medieval period
• Vegetation history and plant succession in British wetlands
• Biogeography

Current Research

I am currently pursuing interests that connect directly with the 51cg's strategic theme of The North. In this respect, my core research activities continue to focus upon the impacts of Norse settlement on the vegetation and landscapes of southwest Greenland. The colonisation (landnám) of Greenland by people of Scandinavian origin - the Norse, or 'Vikings' of popular culture - took place around AD 985 following the arrival of settlers from Iceland led by Erik the Red. Settlement continued for a period of around 400 years before the colonies collapsed for various economic, social and climatic reasons which are still being debated. My research in this field is centred upon the characterisation of signatures for Norse activity in palaeoecological records from Greenland using pollen analysis and associated proxies (such as microscopic charcoal, fungal spores, radiocarbon dating, and peat geochemistry).

(Above) The ruins of Hvalsey church and farm, Eastern Settlement, Greenland (June 2011, photograph by J.E.Schofield). The last definite (written) record to emerge from Norse Greenland is a letter reporting a wedding at Hvalsey church in AD 1408.

Funding and Grants

• Leverhulme Trust Standard Grant (2014-17) Calving glaciers: long-term validation and evidence (CALVE) (Co-investigator)
• AHRC Standard Grant (2014) Bennachie landscapes: investigating communities past and present at the Colony site (Co-investigator)
• SNH 'Year of Natural Scotland' (2013) A stratigraphic survey and pollen analysis of peat deposits at Bennachie, Aberdeenshire (in collabaration with the Scottish Sculpture Workshop)
• Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland Research Grant (2010) The potential of the Norse Middle Settlement of Greenland for a major interdisciplinary research project (joint with Prof. K Edwards)

Teaching Responsibilities

Coordinator for the following courses:

GG2508 & GG2515 Skills and Techniques in Geosciences

GG3573 & GG3574 Research Design

GG4023 Geography Dissertation

GO4001 Geoscience Project A

Additionally, I contribute classroom, laboratory and/or field-based teaching on the following courses:

GG1010 Creating the Anthropocene

GG1512 The UN Sustainable Development Goals

GG2013 Physical Environments

GG3069 Remote Sensing & GIS

GG3575 Techniques in Physical Geography

GG3596 Physical Geography: Honours Field Course (formerly Montane Environments)

GG4571 & GG4579 Environmental Change

Last updated: 15 July 2026