A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin (Department of Botany), my PhD research (completed 1989) focused on Holocene environmental change with particular reference to human impact in western Connemara. Postdoctoral research experience include periods of more than a year at the University of New South Wales, Sydney (1989), and the Free University of Amsterdam (1990) where I researched European impact on eastern Australian environments and Irish Late-glacial environments (in the context of a joint NUIGFree University of Amsterdam project led by M. OConnell and funded by the EU), respectively.Since 1992 I have been involved in palaeoecological research undertaken at the Palaeoenvironmental Research Unit. The research undertaken has focussed on long-term climate change and the role people have played in shaping the Irish landscape from the Neolithic period through to present time in the west of Ireland. To this end both lake and bog cores have been taken sampled and analysed for fossil pollen, macrofossils and non-pollen palynomorphs (fungal remains etc. Pollen identification and counting has been done to highest possible standards and the results have been published in national and international journals (both Science and Archaeology; see PRU web page). Many investigations have been undertaken at important archaeological sites eg Céide Fields, Co. Mayo; Chancellorsland, Co. Tipperary and Mooghaun Hillfort, Co Clare. In 2011 I joined the School of Geography and Archaeology. I lecture to undergraduate Geography and Archaeology students and contribute to the MA in Landscape Change.

I have been involved in palaeoecological research at NUI Galway since the mid 1980s. My main focus of research is using palaeoenvironmental methods, primarily pollen analysis, to reconstruct changes in the Irish landscape since the Late-glacial period to recent times. I have been responsible for detailed pollen analytical investigations at several high profile sites such as Céide Fields, N. Mayo, and Mooghaun, SE Co. Clare, as well as being the main pollen analyst for the EU-funded project TIMECHS which focussed on Inis Oírr, Aran Islands. Other research projects include Late-glacial and Holocene climate change in Atlantic Europe based on multiproxy evidence from calcareous lake sediments (funded by the HEA, PRTLI3 programme) and Reconstruction of post-glacial change at Ballinphuill, east Galway (M6 motorway) and Caheraphuca, Crusheen, Co. Clare (N18 motorway) (funded by the NRAGalway County Council). I am a member of the Environmental Change Research Cluster, Discipline of Geography.