I am a geologist and geochemist. My PhD research focuses on the elemental and isotopic behavior of nitrogen during igneous and metamorphic processes, exploring its role in Earth’s nitrogen cycle over geological timescales.

By analyzing nitrogen concentrations, isotopic values, and partition coefficients in igneous and metamorphic rocks, I aim to better understand how nitrogen is stored, fractionated, and transported through Earth's systems.

Key Thesis Objectives:

1. Method optimisation for measurement of nitrogen isotopes and low nitrogen concentrations (ppm level) in a range of rocks and minerals. 
2. Using nitrogen measurements from SPGs (strongly peraluminous granites) as proxies for biomass burial over billion year timescales.
3. Using nitrogen measurements from graded metamorpic rocks to speak to the effect of contact metamorphism on nitrogen concentrations and isotopic values of the host rock.
4. Study mineral separates from igneous rocks to understand the elemental and isotopic partition coefficients of nitrogen between different minerals.

This work will provide insights into nitrogen cycling, its fluxes between Earth’s reservoirs, and its implications for planetary habitability and life evolution.

Conferences 

• 2024 Geochemistry Group Research in Progress Meeting (GGRiP)
  - presented a poster titled "Nitrogen in Strongly Peraluminous Granites provides insight to the timing and nature of biomass burial between the Precambrian and Phanerozoic."
• 2024 University of St Andrews SEES Postgraduate Resercher Conference
  - presented a talk titled "Nitrogen in Strongly Peraluminous Granites provides insight to the timing and nature of biomass burial between the Precambrian and Phanerozoic."
• 2024 IAPETUS Doctoral Training Partnership Conference
  - presented a poster titled "Nitrogen in Strongly Peraluminous Granites Provides Insight to the Timing and Nature of Biomass Burial between the Precambrian and Phanerozoic"
• 2025 University of St Andrews SEES Postgraduate Resercher Conference
  - presented a talk titled "Nitrogen in Strongly Peraluminous Granites Provides Insight into the Timing and Nature of Biomass Burial across the Precambrian-Phanerozoic transition"
• 2025 IAPETUS Doctoral Training Partnership Conference
  - presented a talk titled "Granitic Nitrogen and its Clues to Ancient Biomass Burial"
• 2025 Goldschmidt Conference 
  - presented a poster titled "Nitrogen in Strongly Peraluminous Granites Provides Insight to the Timing and Nature of Biomass Burial between the Precambrian and Phanerozoic"
• 2025 Astrobiology ASB10 conference
  - presented a talk titled "Igneous Rocks as a Viable Source of Fixed Nitrogen to Prebiotic Worlds"

Upcoming Conferences

• 2026 University of St Andrews SEES Postgraduate Resercher Conference
• 2026 Geochemistry Group Research in Progress Meeting (GGRiP)
• 2026 IAPETUS Doctoral Training Partnership Conference
• 2026 Goldschmidt Conference
  
  
  

Graduate Teaching Assistant for the following modules:

📘ES1001 Understanding Planet Earth (weekly labs) | 2023
📘ES1002 Earth's Resource Challenges (weekly labs) | 2024, 2025
📗ES2001 Dynamic Earth: The Earth System (weekly labs) | 2024
📗ES2002 Dynamic Earth: Magma, Minerals and Metamorphism (weekly labs) | 2026
📗ES2003 Dynamic Earth: Earth Surface Processes (small group tutorials) | 2025
📙ES3008 Geochemistry (weekly labs) | 2023, 2024, 2025
📙ES4001 Field Excursion and Map Interpretation (Fieldtrip in the Swiss-Italian Alps) | 2024
📕ES5005 Isotope Geochemistry (biweekly labs) | 2025

Master of Geology (MGeol)
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews, Scotland