I am a palaeoecologist and biogeographer, with an interdisciplinary academic background spanning physical geography, palaeontology and archaeology.

My research focuses on the fossil mammal record from the last 2.6 million years to today (the Quaternary), combining elements of biostratigraphy and reconstruction of past environments, with investigation of palaeobiological aspects such as evolutionary change, palaeodiet and the interaction of past mammalian communities with humans. I have proposed new models for our understanding of climates and environments of the last half million years, using mammalian turnover to identify discrete climatic episodes. This was an essential step in both improving our chronological understanding beyond the reach of radiocarbon dating, and in our deepening our knowledge of biological response to climate change. Outside the UK, I have extended my research into the correlation of Quaternary faunas of France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Syria, demonstrating a sustained international research profile. The framework I proposed now forms the established basis for our understanding of glacial-interglacial mammalian faunal turnover in the UK and NW Europe and is widely employed by stratigraphers, palaeontologists, geochronologists and archaeologists. I have further collaborated with geochronologists to permit faunal turnover and range shifts to be more accurately dated, allowing a higher degree of resolution to be recognized than attained previously. My research now sets the agenda for interpreting mammalian responses to abrupt climate change at the end of the last ice age in northern Europe, as well as addressing questions of long-term faunal history through glacial-interglacial cycles and forecasting faunal responses to future climate change. 

Since 2006, I have been leading excavations at Gully Cave in the Mendip Hills of Somerset. This previously-unexplored limestone cave contains the most important archive of its kind in Britain. It is a key site in our understanding of how fauna responded to abrupt climate change over the last cold stage and in providing the environmental backdrop for the transition from Neanderthals to modern humans in the south-west. To date, excavations have revealed a series of fossil assemblages spanning from c. 80 000 years ago to around 10 000 years ago, when the cave was infilled. Many thousands of bones, teeth and antlers are preserved, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. Highlights include a wolf den with remains of reindeer and bison from the early part of the last ice stage, evidence of spotted hyaena predation on woolly rhino, wild horse, red deer and brown bears from the middle part of the last ice age, and remains of arctic foxes and lemmings from the end of the last ice age. Bones of wild cat, hazel dormouse and aurochs date from the early part of the current interglacial (warm climate stage). Finds and photographs from the site can be seen here. This vital research relies entirely on sponsorship and small charitable donations so if you would like to support this work, all donations are incredibly gratefully received via JustGiving.

Increasingly, my research is linked to modern conservation initiatives, for example natural resource management and "(re)wilding", using extirpated native species or close functional replicates. These activities include collaborating with ancient DNA specialists to identify appropriate populations for species reintroduction, understanding the impacts of large herbivores on vegetation and wider landscapes, and developing more robust habitat suitability models that incorporate modern, historical and fossil evidence to give a truer picture of species range and habitat preferences. To this end, I work closely with the Natural England Wessex Team and the Partnerships involved in the National Nature Reserves in the South-West of England, contributing conservation palaeobiological evidence to their landscape strategy documents.

I am also very interested in carnivores and am currently leading a NERC Large Grant ("Nature of the Beast: Resolving drivers of prey choice, competition and resilience in wolves", co-I Dr Angela Lamb, British Geological Survey), which uses a combination of palaeodietary techniques (morphometrics, stable isotopes, dental microwear texture analysis and scat analysis) to examine ecological flexibility in grey wolves over the last 250 000 years in Europe, and to work with modern wolf ecologists to provide data on the long-term responses of these large predators to climate and environmental change. You can find more details through our recent publication here.

Finally, my academic work extends into the GeoHumanities, through my long-standing collaborations with fine arts practitioners, animators and graphic artists, performance makers and writers, to examine societal responses to climate change, rewilding, the evolution of scientific thought and other topics. A recent example of a collaborative work with my longstanding colleague, Sean Harris - "The Nature of the Beast", based on my NERC research grant on ecological resilience and palaeodiet in wolves - can be seen here.

Beyond the university sector, my work comprises three main strands:

INDUSTRY: My work intersects with the commercial extraction of sands and gravels and major construction projects, including High Speed 1 and High Speed 2, the landfall development of offshore windfarms, road construction and housing developments. Most recently, I was an invited specialist to High Speed 2 meetings organised by W.S. Atkins and HS2, and was invited by Highways England to advise on the Palaeolithic and Pleistocene impacts of the A303 construction in the landscape around Stonehenge (2021). Impact-related activities included lobbying for the mandatory monitoring of key Pleistocene/Palaeolithic sites under development at various quarrying sites and establishing benefits for professional archaeological consultants and units in terms of employment opportunities and training.

HERITAGE SECTOR: I have developed sustained (>18 years) engagement with both Historic England and particularly, with Natural England, as well as other bodies with regards to providing specialist advice on the Palaeolithic and Pleistocene. My role on English Heritage’s steering groups (details below) has led to the identification and publication of research and conservation themes for national implementation and to the identification of best practice. My current contributions to the Geological Conservation Review will result in the adoption (or de-registering) of Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Selected examples of activity include:

• Invited by Historic England to contribute to workshops to develop the 2008 policy document “Research and Conservation Framework for the British Palaeolithic”, the 2020 policy document “Curating the Palaeolithic: Guidance” and the writing of the 2020 policy document “Scientific Dating of Pleistocene Sites: Guidelines for Best Practice.”
• Invited by Natural England in 2015 to participate in their Geological Conservation Review of the Palaeolithic in Britain.
• Ongoing Acting Specialist for Natural England in the Geological Conservation Review of British Quaternary mammal sites, providing expert opinion on site importance and conservation, which underpins the Sites of Special Scientific Interest designation.
• Collaborator (with colleagues at Reading University) to “Curating the Lower & Middle Palaeolithic”, which provides clear and accessible new guidance documents that will advise curators, Local Planning Authorities, consultants and contractors in the management of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic resource, 2018.
• Invited by Essex County Council to be an expert reviewer of their “Managing the Essex Pleistocene” project, 2015.
• Specialist review of fossil mammal collection for Leeds Museum’s Geoblitz project, 2014-16.
• Specialist reviewer of application for UNESCO World Heritage status by Creswell Crags in 2021.
• Specialist advisor to the South-West Heritage Service and Ipswich and Colchester Museums in their respective applications for Arts Council accreditation and designation respectively, 2015 and 2022.

CULTURAL ENRICHMENT AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT: My work has received widespread print, radio and television coverage in local, national and international arenas, for example appearances on Radio 4’s In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg, Channel 4’s Birth of Britain series, BBC2’s Prehistoric Autopsy series, NERC’s Planet Earth podcast, BBC Radio 4’s inside Science (2014), The Infinite Monkey Cage (2017), the Today programme (2006, 2022) and The Ancients podcast (2025). My work has been presented in a five-part series on caves for US-based documentary subscription service Curiosity Stream (Off The Fence Productions, 2021) and was featured in 2025 in the Channel 5 series "Ice Age Apocalypse" with Steve Backshall and Michael Strachan (October Films).

In addition:

• My National Ice Age Network project united the public, archaeological and heritage professionals, national policy makers, quarry operators and other stakeholders, providing a variety of academic and outreach activities (newsletters, website, travelling exhibition, lecture, practical guide to working in quarries and artefact and fossil handling sessions). Over 20000 leaflets and A3 fold-out ‘recognition sheets’, designed to aid the public in identifying key types of Ice Age remains, were distributed free in British Archaeology, the flagship national magazine of the Council for British Archaeology and nationally at other public events and can be downloaded free via archaeologydataservice.ac.uk.
• I advise museums in the development of exhibitions and other activities, for example The Natural History Museum’s “Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story”, a major public exhibition, 2014-15, ongoing redevelopment of exhibition space at Wells Museum (ongoing) to highlight their Pleistocene mammal collections, including negotiating loans with the Natural History Museum, and development of a small exhibition on Browne’s Hole for Frome Museum in 2017.
• My work is profiled in ongoing collaborations with artists and performance makers, including current work with independent graphic artist and animator, Sean Harris, artist Flora Parrott (Royal Holloway) and performance maker, David Overend (Edinburgh University). Examples include: 
  • Playing With Time, 2017, Wells and Mendip Museum, Museum of Somerset, with Sean Harris
  • The Cave Hunters and the Truth Machine, 2019, EyeView Festival, Torquay, with Sean Harris
  • Udfil, 2020, Loggerheads Country Park, Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB, with Sean Harris, a walking app (Gilbert Pidcock’s Ghost Menagerie) and exhibition.
  • Homotherium, 2021, Creswell Crags, with Sean Harris
  • The Conference of the Birds, 2021 - present, Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB, Centre for the Applied Arts Wales. Shown at Senedd Cymru - Welsh Parliament, Cardiff.
  • The Cave Hunters and the Truth Machine, 2024, Royal Holloway: the exhibition can be seen here, with a 360 degree tour of the exhibition.
  • Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence at Royal Holloway, Flora Parrott, in “These Pits and Abysses”, an installation at the CLF Art Café, Peckham, 2016
  • Collaboration with Dr David Overend (Drama), courtesy of a Royal Holloway HARI Fellowship, working with performance makers to examine societal responses to rewilding, including a workshop at Knepp Castle and a ‘walking safari’ in central London and publication. A film on the work was shown at the Scottish Society of Artists’ 130th annual exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy building in Edinburgh, 2022.
• I have lectured at major public outreach events at the British Museum, the British Science Association science festival, Historic England’s National Archaeology Week and the Lyme Regis Festival of Fossils. I gave the prestigious Burlington House Lecture on behalf of the Geological Society of London in 2011. In 2023, I exhibited work from my research excavations at Gully Cave (Somerset) at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition.
• I regularly provide talks to local and national special interest societies in natural history, geology and archaeology (the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, the Bucks Geology Group, the Camberley and Bagshot Metal Detectorists group, the Cumberland Geological Society, the Devonshire Association, the East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society, the Essex Field Club, the Essex Rock and Mineral Society, the Farnham Geological Society, the Harrow and Hillingdon Geological Society, the Hertfordshire Geological Society, the Lyme Regis Festival of Fossils, the Mendip Society, the Mendip Hills AONB, the Mole Valley Geological Society, the Oxford Geology Group, the Ravensbourne Geological Society, the Somerset Archaeology and Natural History Society, the South West Hertfordshire Archaeological and Historical Society, the Spelthorne U3 group, the Stamford Geological Society, the West Sussex Geological Society and the Yorkshire Geological Society.
• Since 2013, I have contributed annually to the “Explore Ebbor” day of the “Mendip Rocks” geology festival, leading talks and walks in Ebbor Gorge for members of the public. I contribute annually to the “Mendip Rocks” Festival, a celebration of geology in the Mendip Hills in Somerset, and to Royal Holloway’s National Science Week activities. I have engaged with a diversity of audiences from metal detectorists to petroleum geologists and civil engineers.