Environmental Chemistry and Engineering

Biography

I graduated from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham, in 1978 with a BSc in Applied Chemistry, and then undertook a PhD in the Department of Chemistry, University of Keele, under the supervision of Professor David Morgan, investigating pheromones in social insects. In 1981 I was appointed to a postdoctoral research position in the Organic Geochemistry Unit, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, where I worked with Professors Geoffrey Eglinton and James Maxwell, developing GC/MS and HPLC methods for investigating porphyrins in crude oils and source rocks.In 1984 I moved to the Department of Biochemistry, University of Liverpool, to manage a biochemical mass spectrometry unit. In 1993 I was appointed to a Lectureship in School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, promoted to Reader, 1996, and awarded Chair of Biogeochemistry in 2000. I am currently Director of Bristol Biogeochemistry Research Centre and the Bristol node of the NERC Life Sciences Mass Spectrometry Facility and a member of the NERC Peer Review College. I was recently awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Theophilus Redwood Lectureship and Interdisciplinary Award.

Research Interest

My research is highly interdisciplinary, applying the principles, techniques, and rigor of organic and analytical chemistry, to tackle questions in the fields of: (i) archaeological chemistry, (ii) biogeochemistry, and (iii) biomolecular palaeonotology. All three fields are inextricably linked by my interests in the preservation, recycling, decay and transport processes, impacting on biological materials when they enter the geosphere.