Dr Graeme Swindles has been awarded the Lewis Penny medal by the Quaternary Research Association (QRA)
The Quaternary Research Association has awarded the Lewis Penny medal to Dr Graeme Swindles in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds.
The award is made annually to a young or new research worker who has made a significant contribution to the study of strata from the Quaternary period – the last two million years – in the British isles and its maritime environment.
Dr Swindles received the medal at the annual meeting of the QRA at the University of Newcastle.
His citation reads: ‘Graeme Swindles is an exceptional early career Quaternary scientist who has made major advances in our understanding of Holocene climate variability in Britain and Ireland through peatland palaeoclimate records, whilst also making significant contributions to other areas such as European tephrochronology, testate amoebae analysis, environmental archaeology and fundamental process-based understanding of long-term peatland-climate responses’.
Dr Swindles’ research has five main themes:
- past climatic and environmental change
- long-term ecohydrological dynamics of global peatland environments
- the use of testate amoebae as environmental indicators
- tephrochronology and volcanic ash hazards
- the critical examination of past human response and adaptation to climate change (using palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data)
Dr Swindles said: "To receive this medal is a great honour, and I am particularly grateful to the Quaternary Research Association for all their support over the last 10 years”.
Contact details: Dr Graeme Swindles, g.swindles(at)leeds.ac.uk
