About
As a researcher I am a glaciologist whose interests include the influences of hydrology on glacier dynamics and controls on ice sheet mass balance and volume change. I have investigated these using field-based measurements, the development of glacial process models and innovative cold-laboratory work for simulation of ice sheet surface processes. I have over three decades of research experience in glaciology incorporating field sites in the Swiss Alps, the Canadian High Arctic and the Greenland Ice Sheet. This research has been supported by grants from Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), The Leverhulme Trust, The Carnegie Trust, the Scottish Alliance for Geosciences, Environment and Society (SAGES), the Polar Continental Shelf Project (Natural Resources Canada) and the Canadian Circumpolar Institute.
I undertook my PhD based at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge investigating the influence of subglacial hydrology on the dynamics of a temperate valley glacier, the Haut Glacier d’Arolla, gaining my PhD in 1997. From 1997-1999 I continued studying glacier ice dynamics and basal processes as a NERC PDRA to obtain a better understanding of the basal and internal processes which influence glacier motion over seasonal and annual periods, but particularly during early melt season "spring events", i.e. short-term periods of hydrologically-induced, glacier-wide high surface velocities.
From 2000-2002 I held a Leverhulme Trust Fellowship based at the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Canada during which time I was a collaborator on the CRYSYS funded project "Dynamics and Area/Volume Change of Canadian Arctic Ice Caps".
From 2002-2006 I was Lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Aberdeen and institutional PI of a NERC Consortium Grant to validate satellite (CryoSat) based measurements of surface elevation change across the Greenland Ice Sheet.
From 2006-2015 I was Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of Aberdeen, being Head of the Department of Geography and Environment from 2011-2014. From 2008-2012 I was institutional PI of an ambitious project to understand the links between hydrology and dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet, collaborating with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh.
From 2015-2018 I led a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant, 2015-2018, with an interdisciplinary team of glaciologists, palaeoecologists and marine palaeobiologists to determine long-term (centennial to millennial) changes in tidewater glacier calving rates.
Since January 2016 I have been Professor of Glaciology at the University of Liverpool where I am actively involved in strengthening glacial research within the Environmental Change Research Group and developing research links with colleagues in ocean sciences. I was Dean and Head of School of Environmental Sciences from 2016-2025.
I currently (2023-present) lead a NERC funded project to simulate the role of near surface ice layers within the accumulation area of the Greenland Ice Sheet in controlling refreezing and runoff within a cold-lab facility. We are using results from lab experiments to better parameterise 1-D models for use at ice sheet scale.