Dr Aisling Dolan

Profile

As Head of Faculty Research Operations, my main focus will be to provide leadership, development and coordination across school-level research teams to support us in achieving ambitious faculty research plans. The Faculty of Environment is at the centre of pressing interdisciplinary, challenge-led research agendas and we are responding to an unprecedented level of funding opportunity. I will work to embed a consistency in approach to ensure that we have effective partnerships between academics and professional services, that enable us to deliver high quality research across the Faculty. I will also support activity aimed at enhancing Research Culture and embedding Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) best practice in Research.

Following a research career in palaeoclimate modelling, I moved into professional services and worked as the Research Manager in the School of Earth and Environment. I have significant experience in managing teams, supporting the research environment of a large and research intensive school, and have supported previous submissions to the Research Excellence Framework (REF).  More recently, I completed a secondment within the University’s Research Culture team as the EDI in Research Lead, where I led the implementation of initiatives to support underrepresented groups in senior levels of academia.

Research interests

I completed my PhD at the University of Leeds. My main research area involved understanding the nature of the Pliocene warm period, which serves as a useful analogue for future climate change. My core skills are numerical climate and ice sheet modelling. I served on the advisory panel for PlioMIP (Pliocene Model Intercomparison Projects) and lead the international Pliocene Ice Sheet Modelling Intercomparison Project (PLISMIP) alongside researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Utrecht University.  In 2014 I was elected to sit on the AGU Council as an Early Career Scientist and served on the Council (2014-2018) and as a member of the Council Leadership Team (2016-2018). Between 2020-2022, I served as a member of the AGU Leadership Development and Governance Committee.

• Plio-ESS (Pliocene constraints on Earth System Sensitivity)
• Pliocene Transient Climate modelling

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Leeds
• MRes, Science of the Environment, Lancaster University
• BSc, Geography Major (German Minor), Aberystwyth University

Professional memberships

• American Geophysical Union
• European Geosciences Union

Student education

Current PhD Students:

• Abigail Buchan: Climate Extremes in a Warmer World: What does the Pliocene tell us?

• Lauren Burton: Palaeo constraints on the 1.5°C world: What does the Pliocene tell us about the long-term effects of atmospheric CO2 at ~400 ppmv?

Past PhD Students

• Yvonne Smith: Modelling iceberg trajectories and the nature of ice sheets during the Pliocene
• Despina Zoura: Modelling ancient Eurasian seaways and the onset of the Asian aridity
• Dario Domingo: Mathematical methods for uncertainty quantification in reconstructions of past climate
• Caroline Prescott: Orbital forcing and its importance in understanding the warm Pliocene