Community

Below is a collation of projects that I have been involved with that span from within to beyond the typical scientific scope.

Professional Experience

SEPM Fluvial Sedimentology Research Group (2023-present) – Penn State University

  • As a committee co-chair, I help in organizing quarterly talks and workshops.

The Anthropocene Sediment Network (2020-present) – University of Leicester

  • I lead an international research team that facilitates research between sedimentology and other disciplines.

Early Career Scientist Committee (UK Rep.), (2019-2022) – International Association of Sedimentologists

  • Organizing ‘Early Career’ conference activities, recruitment, and moderating award submissions.

Founder and Webmaster at Seds Online (March 2020-September 2020) – Seds Online

  • I founded Seds Online and established a committee, newsletter, website, and events for the community.

  • It became the de facto professional forum for sedimentary geology during the pandemic in UK, Europe, and N. America.

President / Treasurer of AAPG Leeds Student Chapter (2015-2016 & 2013-2015) - University of Leeds

  • As president I scheduled fortnightly talks using the team’s combined expertise network.

  • As treasurer I arranged expenses payments for our speakers and managed the accounts.

Environment Team Volunteer Coordinator (October 2011-June 2012) - University of Leicester

  • I overhauled the universities environmental volunteering scheme resulting in a ten-fold increase in student engagement.

Gold CREST Award Project (Creativity in Engineering, Science and Technology) (July-September 2008) - Bablake School / University of Leicester / British Geological Survey

  • Organized a placement at the British Geological Survey Headquarters for seven weeks: I published the results in 2011.

Invited Talks

  • October 2024 – American Geophysical Union (AGU), Earth and Planetary Science focus group (EPSP) Connects, virtual, “Sedimentological Insights into Improving Contemporary Environmental Assessment”.

  • May 2024 – University of Vienna, virtual, “Anthropogenic Fluvial Systems and Strata”.

  • May 2024 – British Society of Geomorphology, virtual, “Plastic (et al.,) as sediment and what to do about it’”.

  • March 2024 – Royal Society Theo Murphy Meeting - Sedimentology of Plastics: state of the art and future directions, “Plastic (et al.,) as a Sediment”.

  • February 2024 – Quantum Photonics Club, virtual, “Microplastics increase riverbed sediment movement & erosion”.

  • November 2023 - Bablake School, visit and talks (Age 14-18) “Beginning a Career in Earth Science”.

  • August 2023 - California Academy of Sciences “Night School”, virtual, “Plastic as a Sediment in Riverbed Environments”

  • June 2023 – Brown University “Reconnecting Cause and Effect for Landscape Change in the Anthropocene”.

  • June 2023 - Tulane University “The Mississippi River, the Anthropocene, and plastic pollution experiments”.

  • April 2023 - Fulbright Enrichment Seminar on Human Health, Chicago “Landscapes, Pollution, & Health”.

  • April 2023 - Louisiana Chapter of the Coasts, Ocean, Ports & Rivers Institute “The geology and pollution of the Mississippi River in the Anthropocene”.

  • April 2022 – University of Vienna, virtual, “Anthropocene Rivers”.

  • March 2022 – Online Webinar for the “Source to Sink” series “Anthropocene Rivers”.

  • March 2022 – Imperial College London “Our Impact on Planet Earth’s Sedimentology in the Anthropocene”.

  • October 2021 – Minnesota, USA, virtual, River Semester “Mississippi River Sediment”.

  • July 2021 - Riva del Garda, Italy, virtual, International Conference of Fluvial Sedimentology “Anthropocene Rivers”.

  • May 2021 - British Sedimentary Research Group postgraduate online workshop “Networking Online”.

  • December 2020 - Girls into Geoscience virtual outreach event (Age 13-14) “Rivers in the Anthropocene”.

  • November 2020 - Climate + Rivers virtual outreach event (Age 16-18) “Anthropocene and the Mississippi”.

  • February 2020 - University of Cambridge “Accurately interpreting river morphology from the rocks”.

  • November 2019 - Anthropocene River Campus at Tulane University “The four-dimensional Mississippi”.

  • February 2019 - Louisiana State University “The use of a multi-disciplinary approach to predict the architecture and lithological heterogeneity of point-bar deposits”.

  • January 2019 - Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society “Rivers in the Rock Record: from Utah to Wales”.

Mirage is an outdoor sculpture created by artist Katie Paterson and architectural studio Zeller & Moye, located in Apple Park, California. It is made from cylinders of pure cast glass, containing sand collected from deserts across the Earth.

I worked with Katie Paterson and her amazing team offering sedimentological advice on the sediment collection locations and strategies.

Katie Paterson’s Requiem exhibit at Ingleby Gallery tells a beautiful story of time and consequence of anthropogenic activity. The dust spans from pre-solar system dust 5 billion years old, right up to the modern age. Layer by layer, each one of the dusts was poured into an urn to create a condensed stratigraphy of Earth’s archive.

I provided sediment from the Mississippi River and sedimentological discussions.