Profile

I was born on the tiny island of Jersey 🇯🇪 and was super lucky to grow up living within Jersey Zoo as both of my parents worked as zookeepers 🐻🦇🦜. I am also named after a duck that my dad helped save from extinction 🦆!  This is where I learnt to love animals and knew i wanted to be a scientist. My family are foster carers and we have helped look after over 50 children, which means my house is always busy and never boring 😄! I moved to Edinburgh to study Geography 🌎 and i fell in love with the city and the department and have never left. I have the coolest PhD in the world where i get to dig up mud in Norway and look at beetles all day 🪲🔬! In my spare time i like to go for long walks, cycles or swims (although i also love watching TV and playing Xbox games with my boyfriend 🎮).

My research is based in arctic Norway, where i use fossil insects (mostly Beetles) to reconstruct Lateglacial (Ice Age) and Holocene environmental and climatic conditions. I can then look at how these have changed over time, which will hopefully help us understand the impact of climate change better. I am also investigating the effect humans have had on the landscape and other animals over a long period of time. I will also hopefully get to work on some exciting new environmental DNA techniques. Northern Norway is especially important to investigate as the Arctic is changing at a scarily fast rate due to climate change, and my long term records may help us predict the impact of these changes.❄️🪲