Menu Close
ARC Research Fellow, University of Adelaide

I am a luminescence dating specialist currently working on reconstructing Quaternary environmental, palaeontological and archaeological histories in southwest Europe.

I obtained my PhD at the University of Wollongong in 2009. The research focussed on quartz OSL dating of Late Pleistocene perennially-frozen loess deposits from the Yukon Territory and Alaska (eastern Beringia). OSL chronologies generated during my doctorate were used to improve tephro-chronological frameworks in the region and resolve ancient DNA (aDNA) histories of extinct fauna.

In 2011 I was awarded a three year Marie Curie grant (IRG 276810) to undertake postdoctoral research at the CENIEH (Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Spain). This research focused on the development and application of extended-range luminescence dating techniques (post-IR IRSL and single-grain TT-OSL approaches) at Early/Middle Pleistocene archaeological and palaeontological sites from southwest Europe, particularly the UNESCO World Heritage site of Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain).

I recently completed an ARC DECRA Research Fellowship (DE160100743) at the University of Adelaide. That research utilised extended-range luminescence dating techniques to reconstruct early human evolutionary histories and cultural turnovers at a range of archaeological and fossil sites across the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal).

I am currently empoyed under an ARC Linkage grant to apply these luminescence dating techniques to cave sedimentary sequences at Naracoorte Caves palaeontological sites (South Australia) to investigate the timing of megafaunal extinctions in the Australian continent.

Experience

  • –present
    ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Fellow, University of Adelaide

Education

  • 2009 
    University of Wollongong, PhD Earth and Environmental Sciences