Team Members Profile
DTP Grant Holder
Mark Maslin is the Grant holder of the London NERC DTP.
Director, The London NERC DTP
London NERC DTP Director
Kevin Fowler is Director of The London NERC DTP, overseeing the day-to-day running of the partnership. Kevin is Professor of Evolutionary Biology at UCL and a former Royal Society URF, his primary research interests are in sexual selection and sexual antagonism.
Deputy Director, The London NERC DTP
London NERC DTP Deputy Director of Training
David Thornalley is Deputy Director of The London NERC DTP. He oversees the training framework and cohort development. David is a Professor of Ocean and Climate Science in the department of Geography at UCL. The central focus of his research is investigating the ocean and its role in the climate system, to allow us to improve predictions of future climate change and take the necessary steps to protect our environment.
Professor in Earthquake Geology and Rock Physics, University College London
Tom is a Reader in Earthquake Geology and Rock Physics. His research focus on the experimental deformation of rocks under simulated geological conditions, in order to help interpret natural processes such as faulting and earthquake mechanics and detailed field studies on the structure and properties of strike-slip fault zones over a range of scales to further understand fault growth processes, subsequent mechanics, and bulk hydraulic and seismological properties of a fault zone.
Senior Lecturer (Department of Geography), Birkbeck, University of London
Stefan is a Lecturer in Physical and Environmental Geography and teaches modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Stefan's research focusses on the study of natural archives such as lake sediment records and peat bogs to reconstruct climate change and ecosystem dynamics on time-scales ranging from the previous interglacial (ca 125 thousand years ago) to the present.
Professor of Sedimentology, Birkbeck University of London
I study modern and ancient sedimentary environments in order to improve understanding of sedimentation and erosion. Quantifying rates of sedimentation and erosion are fundamental to understanding and predicting the short to medium term evolution of sedimentary systems, inform management of environments and habitats, and will also help in the interpretation of ancient sedimentary rocks. Combining geomorphological, sedimentological and shallow geophysical investigations e.g. GPR with geochronological methods such as OSL provides an essential framework to test the influence of forcing factors such as climate change and sea-level change in sedimentary sequences.
Professor In Human Toxicology, Brunel University of London
A Professor of Human Molecular Toxicology, his research interest falls into three broad areas: understanding the combined effects of mixtures of environmental pollutants on human health and wildlife, developing strategies for handling mixtures in chemicals regulation, and dissecting the events important in hormonal carcinogenesis.
Biodiversity & Macroecology Theme Head, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Zoology
Chris's research combines theoretical approaches and comparative analyses to look at broad scale patterns in ecology related to body size, diet and trophic level. His recent work has focused the body size scaling of prey selection and abundance in predators, and patterns in animal space use. He also works with projects examining human-wildlife interactions particularly focusing on the impacts of altered landscapes on wildlife ecology and species richness. This research includes examining ways to improve wildlife monitoring methods, particularly focusing on the use of camera traps to estimate mammalian biodiversity.
Professor of Physical Geography, King's College London
Professor Nick Drake obtained his BSc (Honours) in Environmental Science at Plymouth Polytechnic and Master of Applied Science in Geochemical Exploration from the University of New South Wales. From 1986 to 1992, he worked as a research fellow conducting remote sensing research at the Department of Geography, Reading University. During this time he completed a part-time PhD entitled ‘Mapping and monitoring of surface cover types and processes in southern Tunisia using remote sensing’. Nick joined King's Department of Geography in 1992, was made Reader in 2000 and a Professor in 2013. He has continued to develop his interests in theoretical and practical aspects of remote sensing while broadening his interests into geographical information systems and spatial modelling. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Arid Environments, Origini (Journal of Prehistory and Protohistory of Ancient Civilizations) and the Journal of Geology and Geosciences.
King's College, London
Head of Postgraduate Studies, The Natural History Museum
After completing an MSci in Biological Sciences, Helen stayed on at UCL to undertake a PhD focusing on the evolution of marine worms belonging to the Xenacoelomorpha. Following her PhD she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut Pasteur, Paris, and the University of Chicago, where she focused on the evolution of gene regulation and cell types using the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis as a model system. On return to the UK, Helen began working for The Company of Biologists as Community Manager for a global community of early-career researchers advocating for preprinting in the life sciences. In June 2022 she became Head of Postgraduate Studies at the Natural History Museum, London, overseeing PhD and Master’s programmes involving the museum.
Head of Postgraduate Studies, The Natural History Museum
Following a BSc in Botany at Bristol University, Eileen's PhD research focussed on diatoms, a highly successful group of eukaryotic, silica-walled, essentially unicellular algae that occur in almost all illuminated, aquatic habitats. Following a Postdoctoral research fellowship in Oxford, she held a Royal Society European Exchange fellowship, working with the Biologische Anstalt Helgoland Litoralstation, List/Sylt, Germany, before undertaking research on benthic diatoms with the Max Planck Institute for Limnology in Plön (Holstein), first in north German lakes and subsequently in a stream system in Hessen. Returning to the UK, Eileen was a research associate at the University of Sheffield, before obtaining a NERC Advanced Research Fellowship. In 1992, she moved to the Natural History Museum, London, as a researcher, becoming Head of Postgraduate Studies in 2007, in this role she has led the development of a broad training programme for PhD students at the NHM.
Professor of Biogeochemistry, Queen Mary University of London
Professor of Biochemistry, Director of Research, Mark Trimmer's research is aimed at unravelling the complexities of these life-sustaining cycles, from the pristine chalk streams of England to the tropical oceans. Using natural isotopes of these bio-elements to track their cycling across these diverse aquatic ecosystems and molecular techniques to probe their underlying microbial ecology. Mark also uses the longest running climate warming experiment (situated in Dorset) to characterise how warming alters the cycling of carbon and nitrogen, with a particular interest on how warming alters the ratios of the greenhouse gases CO2, CH4 and N2O emitted. This work on warming is supplementing a large research effort currently running around the Arctic Circle where, with Imperial Collage, where they are taking a ‘genes to ecosystems’ approach to help predict the effects of climate change on the key ecosystem service of bio-element cycling.
Director of the Centre for Quaternary Research, Royal Holloway University of London
Danielle is a vertebrate palaeontologist and specialist in Quaternary mammals. Her research focuses on the fossil mammal record from the last 2.5 million years, combining biostratigraphy (the use of fossil assemblages as a dating tool), palaeoecology, taphonomy and the interaction of past mammalian communities with early humans. The framework she has developed now forms a part of the established basis for our understanding of glacial-interglacial mammalian faunal turnover in NW Europe and is widely employed by stratigraphers, palaeontologists, geochronologists and archaeologists. As a former President of the Geologists’ Association (only the third woman to serve in over 150 years) and current Vice-President of the Quaternary Research Association, she maintains a strong commitment to public science communication. She is also an active fieldworker, currently leading investigations into a number of important new palaeontological sites in Britain.
DTP Manager
Karina Dixon is the Manager of the London NERC DTP and is responsible for managing all aspects of the DTP’s admin activities and supporting the day-to-day running of the student selection process, training programme, monitoring and communications. Karina is also responsible for the liaison with local administrators at each Partner Institution to synchronise procedures across the Partnership as well as with key staff in the Research Councils and manages all the financial aspects of the Training Partnership .
DTP Co-ordinator
Kate Moore is the Co-ordinator of the London NERC DTP and supports the manager with the day-to-day running of the DTP. Her key areas of responsibility are the administration of the London NERC DTP; co-ordination of the studentship competition and processes; maintaining and updating the DTP website. Kate is also responsible for providing general student support, overseeing the organisation of the undergraduate REP scheme and liaising with external associate partners to establish CASE partnerships and internships.
Birkbeck, University of London
Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography with a specific focus on Quaternary Science. She works on Quaternary palaeoevironments, river activity, modelling and dating techniques. She is the Meetings Officer for the Quaternary Research Association and also involved in the Fluvial Archives Group (FLAG) and FACSIMILE (Field And Computer SIMulation in Landscape Evolution) network. Expert in Quaternary palaeoenvironments, with particular interests in sediment dating methods (OSL, radiocarbon), fluvial sequences and integrating geological data with numerical modelling. she is currently working on improving radiocarbon pretreatments on plant material, which is both important and timely, and supported by a NERC Radiocarbon Facilities Grant, in collaboration with Dr Harry Langford (Geography, Birkbeck), Dr Fiona Brock (Cranfield Forensic Institute) and Professor Danielle Schreve (Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London)
Birkbeck University of London
FRS, Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Widely recognised as a distinguished scientist in his field, Professor Mark Chase FRS has extensive experience in plant science and has held this role since August 2006. He has contributed to many publications and was lead author of the landmark 1993 paper on seed plant phylogenetics that began the molecular revolution leading to the reclassification of the flowering plants and many individual plant groups. Professor Chase’s areas of interest are plant classification and evolution and he has worked extensively with orchids. He can also speak about RBG Kew’s plant DNA genetic research. In 2009 he was awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal of the Linnean Society of London, given every 50 years to a set of outstanding biologists.
Senior Lecturer in Geophysics, Royal Holloway
Queen Mary University of London
Pavel Kratina is a Lecturer in Aquatic Ecology at Queen Mary University of London. His earlier work identified and tested ecological mechanisms that enhance the prevalence of weak interaction strengths in nature and explained how diversity per se stabilizes diverse ecosystems. As a past NSERC postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia (Canada), Pavel focused his research on the destabilizing effects of climate warming. He has been an active member of multiple international synthesis groups, and has helped to develop a novel theoretical framework for predicting temperature effects on trophic dynamics and stability. During his fellowships at the University of California, Davis (USA) and Monash University, Melbourne (Australia), he showed how invasive zooplankton species alter complex natural food webs. Pavel is an Associate Editor for Ecology and Evolution, Review Editor for Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, and Communications Officer for British Ecological Society Aquatic Group (BESAG).
Head of the Institute for the Environment, Brunel University
Susan is Head of the Institute for the Environment at Brunel University, London. She is a leading scientist with particular expertise and over 20 years experience in the biological effects of environmental pollutants, particularly those present in water and has published some of the most highly cited papers in this area in the last two decades. She is author and Editor of a recent WHO/UNEP report on endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment. She has interests in causes and consequences of pollution as well as in clean technology , development. From a regulatory perspective, Susans work has been influential in the development of widespread controls on some chemicals, as their use has been banned in some countries. Keen to make sure her research informs policy, she has served on several Government expert committees.
Head, Comparative Plant and Fungal Biology, Kew
Director of the Centre for Quaternary Research, Royal Holloway University of London
Lecturer in Human Toxicology, Brunel University
Department of Geography, King’s College London
Department of Geography, King’s College London
Martin Wooster joined the Department of Geography in 1998 on a lectureship funded by the NERC Earth Observation Science Initiative (one of four such lectureships awarded nationally in the UK). In 2005 he was appointed Professor of Earth Observation Science at King’s College London. Martin holds a BSc in Physics (Bristol) and an MSc in Remote Sensing (University of London), with a PhD in Earth Sciences (Open University) that focused on exploiting the ATSR instrument for the remote sensing of active volcanoes. Recently his group at KCL have been instrumental in developing the operational Fire Radiative Power (FRP) product from the Meteosat Second Generation satellites, available free in real-time from the EUMETSAT Land Satellite Applications Facility (Land SAF). Professor Wooster is a PI in the NERC National Center for Earth Observation.
