I am an IAPETUS2 (NERC) funded CASE PhD student based within the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at University of St Andrews, but also working at Durham University and with the National Trust for Scotland’s Mar Lodge Estate Management Team. I am developing a ‘past grazing intensity toolkit’ which will be used to investigate the effects on vegetation of herbivory in past landscapes, to produce outputs useful for conservation and estate management e.g., biodiversity baselines, accessible evidence of long-term grazing ecology. This novel multiproxy technique will use pollen, dung fungal spore and faecal lipid biomarker analyses – to study not just presence, but intensity, of grazing in past landscapes, and to explore changes in vegetation composition and biodiversity resulting from shifts in the level and makeup of herbivory. Biomarker results will give species information, from which an understanding of variations in herbivore assemblages over time can be gained e.g., historical transitions from wild to domesticated fauna.

I previously undertook a Masters by Research with the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI), based in Orkney, where I used pollen analysis to contextualise Neolithic and Mesolithic archaeology surrounding the Loch of Stenness (which contains a World Heritage Site) on Mainland Orkney. The research was sponsored by the Ness of Brodgar – a charity which excavated an extensive Neolithic complex adjacent to the Loch of Stenness. Prior to the Masters degree I studied a BSc (Hons) in Archaeological Science with UHI Orkney, producing a pollen analysis associated with postmedieval shielings in Caithness.