I undertook my PhD research at James Cook University investigating palaeosea level histories during the last interglacial, completing in 2007 before undertaking postdoctoral research in the UK and USA investigating modern carbonate sedimentary environments and records of past sea levels during the Pliocene.

I call myself a “climate geoscientist” with research expertise in the fields of tropical coastal geomorphology, coral reef and reef-island evolution, and climate change science. My research focuses on sea level reconstructions during periods of known climate instability, a metric that speaks directly to the future stability of the Polar ice sheets, and tropical coastal response, in particular, low reef-island response to future sea level rise. I have recently broadened my research interests to include the field of submerged landscape archaeology in order to address knowledge gaps in deep history such as early human migrations, the role of climate in the peopling of Australia and coastal-hinterland cultural exchange. These broad research areas cross discipline boundaries but centre on a central theme of climate change, coastal evolution, and human behaviour spanning deep time, the present day and projections into the future.