Senior Lecturer
School of Psychology and Life Sciences
I started at CCCU in September, 2014, joining the team as a Senior Lecturer in Physics.
I completed my PhD at Liverpool University in 1995, then held post-doc positions at the Universdad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, the University of East Anglia and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Whilst in Madrid I was awarded a Fellowship and subsequently a lectureship, a post I held until upping sticks and moving to CCCU.
I teach across all degree levels on the Life Sciences and Engineering programmes, with particular responsibilities in the Physical Laws of the Natural World, Physics for Engineers and Study Skills modules. You will also find me in a scattering of other modules, where physics and environmental sciences are relevant to a fuller understanding of the subject.
I'm a palaeomagnetist and enviromagnetist by trade, with particular interest in studying the roles that magnetic minerals play in the natural environment and what they can tell us about past and present processes.
Together with colleagues and students here at CCCU, I have spent a lot of my research time using magnetic particles to track air quality in Canterbury and across Kent. We have used strawberries, geraniums, petunias, ivy, moss and lichen as biomonitors - which work by trapping atmospheric particles on their surfaces. This work has also involved schools across Kent as part of a wider programe of STEM-related outreach activities. Magnetic minerals are also commonly associated with elevated metal concentrations in soils and sediments. We have studied how this is expressed across a range of environmental settings, including brownfield sites and a disused copper mine in Wales. All of this work is trans-disciplinary in nature and feeds into our Biology, Plant and Animal Science and Ecology programmes.
Another main area of my research revolves around the magnetic properties of archaeological materials. Heated materials become magnetised, which allows us to study the thermal history of the material - the heating temperatures and conditions, and also to date the age of the heating itself. More recently, I have been working with fellow colleagues and students to look at magnetic and chemical fingerprinting of metallic objects and to identify lost and abandoned graves. This work stands at the intersection of environmental science, soil science, archaeology and forensic science and highlights the interconnected nature of our work and programmes hera at CCCU.
My research has been presented at more than 25 International conferences.
I am also actively involved in science outreach and STEM projects across Kent.