Biography
From Pebbles to Planets
Growing up, I loved two things above all else: fossils and space. I have fond memories of family holidays to the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, trips to museums, and of cold nights in the garden with my telescope.
I'd initially attended university open days with the hopes of studying astrophysics. Then a misplaced room change landed me in an undergraduate geology talk, and everything shifted. What I discovered was a wonderfully multidisciplinary field that drew from all aspects of science that I loved: physics, maths, chemistry, and biology. And there were dinosaurs. Big win!
After finishing my BSc in Geology at Royal Holloway, University of London, I stayed on to complete an MSc by Research with the Southeast Asia Research Group, investigating the sedimentary provenance of rocks from central Myanmar. The work involved breaking sandstones down into their component grains and analysing them using spectroscopic and geochronological techniques.
I started a PhD in Planetary Science at the Open University in 2019, finally coming full circle and combining my love of space and rocks. My project used remote sensing data to understand the geology of a population of hills and mesas in Oxia Planum — the future landing site of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover — piecing together what the region might tell us about Mars' ancient past.
If there is one thread that ties my research together, it's change. I am interested in how environments evolve over time, whether that means tracing the ancient paths of rivers on Earth or reconstructing an eroded landscape on Mars.
After finishing my BSc in Geology at Royal Holloway, University of London, I stayed on to complete an MSc by Research with the Southeast Asia Research Group, investigating the sedimentary provenance of rocks from central Myanmar. The work involved breaking sandstones down into their component grains and analysing them using spectroscopic and geochronological techniques.
I started a PhD in Planetary Science at the Open University in 2019, finally coming full circle and combining my love of space and rocks. My project used remote sensing data to understand the geology of a population of hills and mesas in Oxia Planum — the future landing site of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Rover — piecing together what the region might tell us about Mars' ancient past.
If there is one thread that ties my research together, it's change. I am interested in how environments evolve over time, whether that means tracing the ancient paths of rivers on Earth or reconstructing an eroded landscape on Mars.
I now work at the Natural History Museum in London, where I am lucky enough to look at planetary surfaces from orbit as a job.
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I'm fairly certain that if you'd told nine-year-old me that his future office would be next to the giant sloth, he wouldn't have believed you.