People List

Ayako is Professor of Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute (AORI), The University of Tokyo, Japan. She leads a group of paleoclimate modelling using MIROC climate model and IcIES ice sheet model to study the climate dynamics that operates the glacial cycles and abrupt climate changes.

I am an archaeologist specializing in human-environment interaction and ethnoarchaeology. My PhD thesis looks at Pottery, Trade and Diet in the archaeology of Surame, Nigeria. I am a 2018 fellow of the Africa Humanities Program (AHP) and a member of the on-going multidisciplinary Nok Culture Research partnership with the Institute for Archaeological and Archaeobotanical Sciences, Goethe University, Frankfurt-Germany. I have co-directed the annual field school, Department of Archaeology, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria 2012-date.

My academic credentials include degrees in Archaeology, Geography, and Environmental Studies. I have also received trainings in geoarchaeology, micromorphology, and soil analysis. My interest in human-environment interactions and my trainings, qualify me to be an expert in the aforementioned domains. Currently, I am working on geological and archaeological stratigraphy spanning all chronologies using micromorphological techniques.

Dr. Kumar Akhilesh is the Director, Sharma Centre for Heritage Education (SCHE), India. He is jointly directing the research program including excavations and multidisciplinary studies at the Palaeolithic sites of Attirampakkam, and Sendrayanpalayam, and is joint director of the project “Prehistory and Palaeoenvironments in SE India”, that includes research into the microlithic sites of southern Tamil Nadu. His experience lies in both field archaeology as also lithic studies. He is an expert knapper, with experience in knapping quartzite and quartzitic sandstones in addition to chert and basalt. He is currently directing a program on experimental knapping to replicate technological reduction strategies documented at the site of Attirampakkam. He has extensive field experience in southern and eastern India and has published in Nature (2018), Science (2011) and other peer-reviewed journals. He was awarded the Homi Bhabha Fellowship (2014-2016) for a project entitled ‘Experimental Archaeology in investigating Prehistoric Behaviour: Case Studies from the Site of Attirampakkam, India’, and was also trained at CENIEH, Spain for microwear analysis and new technologies in lithic studies. In collaboration with the Regional Remote Sensing Centre-South, NRSA, he was involved in GIS and applications of satellite remote sensing for research and heritage management of prehistoric sites in Tamil Nadu. He is a member of several archaeological associations in India. He is directing the public archaeology initiatives of his Institute and has organized workshops and training programs on prehistory for children, ECRs, faculty, local stakeholders and other interested participants, that are both in-house and elsewhere in India, Sri Lanka and South Korea. He is also currently developing the in-house children’s museum at the SCHE. He completed his Ph.D. on the prehistory of parts of Jharkhand, North India, from the Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute, Pune and has experience working on prehistoric sites and ethnoarchaeology in this region.

Rivka Amit, Director of the Geological Survey of Israel. Her main research field is Quaternary Geology with emphasize on pedology and soil stratigraphy. She studied and advanced three main fields: (1) Understanding long-term patterns of earthquakes occurrence in Mediterranean region; region; (2) Paleoclimate of the eastern Mediterranean specifically in the hyper-arid deserts; (3) Origin and sources of dust accumulation in desert terrains with emphasis on the loess issue. The studies in the field of paleoseismology led to the development of a method of using several pedofeatures of desert soils in analyzing faults occurring in non-consolidated alluvial colluvial sedimentary material. This method yield significant data which is used in seismic hazard assessment and management in eastern Mediterranean region. The paleoclimate studies using soil and paleosols properties, changed the understanding of the Negev desert climate and stress the importance of taking into account local physiographic properties including the location of the coast line and climatological conditions which can disconnect certain areas from global climatological trends. The studies on dust in desert terrain and on the process of dust and loess formation change totally the paradigm of loess formation and dust sources. The scientific contribution of her studies to the earth science research community were recognized by giving Dr Rivka Amit the Farouk El Baz Award for desert research, by the Geological Society of America, a fellowship award of the Geological Society of America and the Freund Award, by the Geological Society of Israel.    

A researcher in Palynology and Paleoecology at the French Institute of Pondicherry, India with more than 25 years of experience. Areas of expertise include Pollen and Phytolith studies, Quaternary Paleoecology, Archeopalynology, Melissopalynology, Aeropalynology and Tropical Forest Ecology. Understanding and quantifying the vegetation changes in the Indian subcontinent with reference to changes in climate (specifically the monsoon) and with reference to human impacts which go back several millennia in this part of the world forms the major thrust area of present research. Delineating methodological challenges in Tropical Palynology and Paleoecology using multiple proxies and a trans-disciplinary approach building collaborations with human sciences, particularly Archaeology, in the framework of Anthropocene are big constraints in the tropics, and these are precisely the areas of interest. Actively engaged with international networks such as PAGES since 2 decades; actively involved in the PAGES LandCover6K working group since 2015. Has organized several International training programmes and workshops in the framework of ongoing scientific projects of PAGES and INQUA and has also received training in India and and other countries to be updated with the state-of-the-art.

Allan Ashworth is a researcher and a teacher in paleoecology at North Dakota State University who specializes in insects and their response to climate change.  He was educated at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he was a student of Quaternary researchers Russell Coope and Fred Shotton.  He has worked on Quaternary projects in several countries. Currently, he is studying full-glacial insect assemblages from the Lake Region of Southern Chile and from the Olympic Peninsula, U.S.A.  

Additionally, he works on Miocene-aged fossiliferous deposits in Antarctica where modern organisms evolved adaptations to cold earlier than they did in the northern hemisphere.  He is also collaborating with a large group of scientists from around the world to develop the Neotoma Paleoecology Database. His research is featured in the film ‘Ice People’, the NOVA documentary ‘Secrets Beneath The Ice’ and in Science magazine. Fossil discoveries made in Antarctica are featured in articles in National Geographic and in the world press, and are recognized in the New Zealand Geographic Board citation for the Ashworth Glacier.  

He has previously served as the Chair of the USNC INQUA and as a Vice-President of INQUA from 2007-2011.

View Allan's home page.

Margaret Avery is a palaeoecologist with an archaeological background whose long-time interest is exploring the multi-facetted information potential of micromammalian prey of barn owls. Arising from this has been the main thrust of her research, contributing to our knowledge of the environmental background to human biological and technological evolution. To this end she has worked on material from all of the important archaeological sites in South Africa as well as early hominid sites such as Sterkfontein and Swartkrans, and sites in Zambia. Another aspect has been applying information to global change studies and the assessment of human impact on the environment. Complementary studies of modern material, besides being important in their own right, help inform taphonomic analyses of fossil samples.

Margaret is a Fellow and Vice President of the Royal Society of South Africa, and a Past President of the Southern African Society for Quaternary Research. She serves on the ICSU South African National Board and ex officio on the South African National Committee for INQUA. She was also Secretary-General of the XV INQUA International Congress held in Durban in 1999. She has been Editor of the South African Archaeological Bulletin and Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa.

Marion's research comprises fossil woods of all ages; Mesozoic and Tertiary macro-plants, Gondwana biodiversity, biogeography, Karoo floras and biostratigraphy, Pleistocene to Holocene African floras and palaeoenvironments.

I holded a doctoral degree in Sedimentary Geology from the Geosciences Institute, Universidade de São Paulo. I concentrate my research in carbonate sedimentation and micropaleontology, with an emphasis in carbonate microfossils, at the Geochemistry Department, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). 

I have over 20 years’ experience in marine geology, mangroves, coral reefs and carbonate shelves. My research has involved upwelling geochemistry, paleoceanography of the South Atlantic using benthic and planktonic foraminifera. I have supervised Master and Doctoral thesis, research projects and fellowships. I am presently lecturing at the Environmental Geochemistry graduate program, one of the best in Brazil (CAPES level 6, with the maximum being 7). Catia has been teaching several disciplines related to Earth-Ocean Systems sciences and curating her foraminiferal collection. Catia has authored several technical and research papers dealing with benthic and planktonic foraminifera, sedimentation of coral reefs, mangroves, estuaries and Brazilian continental margin paleoceanography. 

Juan Carlos conducts research in several Latin-American countries (Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela), in different ecosystems including the tropical rain forest (TRF) of the Amazon Basin and Chocó province, the inter-montane dry biomes, savanna ecosystem and its boundaries with TRF. 

Sudhir is a postdoc at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. He is a paleoclimatologist, working on the reconstruction of the Indian monsoon and associated changes in the Indian Ocean during the Quaternary. His research uses micropaleontology and trace element and isotope geochemistry in biogenic carbonates as proxies.

Christian's research focuses on the dynamics of long-term environmental changes, varved sediments and diatoms. 

I’m an earth systems geographer using tree rings and lake sediments to study paleoclimate, hydroclimatic processes, and the interaction between the climate and human systems. I specialize in dendrochronological reconstructions over the Common Era and my research aims to understand the role of climate variability in changing water resources.

Ed is Distinguished Professor of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at OSU where he runs a laboratory studying Earth's greenhouse gas and climate history from ice cores. 

Freek Busschers is a scientist and project manager at the Department of Geomodelling at TNO - Geological Survey of the Netherlands. Freek ’s research mainly focusses on the development of the southern North Sea Basin during the Quaternary. Looking for fossils as a young boy during holidays in France initiated his interest in the prehistory from a very early age. Freek finished his PhD on the Middle and Late Pleistocene development of the Rhine-Meuse system at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2008 and worked at TNO - Geological Survey of the Netherlands ever since. He currently works on the reconstruction and dating of the now buried southern North Sea Basin paleo landscapes by using the Survey’s extensive borehole and sediment provenance databases and by applying a range of dating techniques such as luminescence dating and biostratigraphy. Freek is an active INQUA member and regards the organisation essential for connecting different Quaternary groups and disciplines all over the world. He was secretary of INQUA-SACCOM since the Nagoya congress in 2015.

My research interests are in water and sediment. I am skilled in water quality, pollutants analyses, species identification of freshwater invertebrates (microscopy), ecosystem restoration, environmental services and monitoring programs.

Brian Chase is a Director of Research with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) with training and interests in palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology and archaeology. Working primarily in southern Africa, he is engaged in the development and evaluation of new palaeoenvironmental archives and proxies in arid to sub-humid environments and the study of low latitude climate change.

Having previously been involved in the study and dating of the region’s extensive dune fields, he now works on developing proxies and obtaining records from fossilised rock hyrax middens. Using stable isotopes, fossil pollen and charcoal, and through the development of pdf-based botanical-climatological transfer functions, and detailed data-model assimilation studies, Brian is working to reconstruct detailed synoptic scale patterns of past climate change and ascertain their impact on vegetation dynamics and human activity and evolution.

During the last inter-congress period, Brian served as the INQUA Secretary-General. He is also the founder and steering committee director of the AFQUA (African Quaternary: Environments, Ecology and Humans) and a steering committee member of the Southern Deserts research group. He has served as a co-leader of Past Global Changes (PAGES) Africa2K Working Group, the President of Southern African Society for Quaternary Research (SASQUA), as a member of the South African National Committee for INQUA and as Vice President and an Advisory Board member for the INQUA Humans and Biosphere Commission (HABCOM). 

Brian also serves on the Editorial Boards of Quaternary International and Quaternary Science Advances.

HYRAX Project Homepage

Alastair is a coastal geomorphologist who studies the evolution of coastal environments during the late Quaternary in response to fluctuations in sea-level, changing climatic conditions, and the impact of tectonics. Alastair also studies the processes that drive variability in relative sea-level changes around the New Zealand coast during the late Quaternary .

Michel is a senior research associate with the National Fund of Scientific Research, and professor at the Université catholique de Louvain. He has been working on climate dynamics and palaeoclimates since 1998, and specialised in modelling the dynamics of the climate system, with a focus on the ice ages phenomenon.

Julie Dabkowski currently works at the Laboratoire de Géographie Physique: environnements quaternaires et actuels (UMR 8591), French National Centre for Scientific Research. Julie does research on calcareous tufa deposits, to reconstruct climate and environments during past Interglacials and the Holocene. She develops a multidisciplinary approach combining her own expertise in tufa stratigraphy, micromorphology and geochemistry to bioproxy data from colleagues through various collaborations in France and Europe.

I’m a postdoctoral researcher, with expertise in the application and

development of trapped charge techniques of luminescence and electron spin

resonance, not only as classical dating methods but also as a provenance tool.

My primary research interests lie in the application of these techniques to gain

insight into the timing, rates and processes of landscape-climate interaction

during the Quaternary.

Dr Kim Davies is a palaeoentomologist based at University College Cork, Ireland and is a Geographer and Quaternary scientist. Her research focuses understanding human-environment interactions through the Holocene across a range of geographical locations. She has a particular interest in understanding how lake ecosystems respond to localised human activity and rapid climatic changes and disentangling the mixed signals of often seen in ecological communities.

During my Ph.D., I focused on Quaternary sea-level research based on geomorphological landforms. I have worked on the improvement of beachrock as a sea-level indicator by sedimentological facies analysis and also studied the ichnology of beachrock and coastal (bioerosion) notches. My main expertise includes sedimentology, carbonate geochemistry, geomorphology and sea-level research.

I earned my PhD in Environmental Science in 2013 from the Insubria University (Como, Italy). My expertise is in the field of active tectonics, including paleoseismology and earthquake environmental effects. I participated to field surveys in the aftermath of several seismic sequences on the Italian territory (Po Plain 2012, Central Italy 2016, Ischia 2017, Mt Etna 2018). My research focused on fault displacement hazard assessment and the characterization of the spatial pattern of surface faulting and secondary effects.

Dr Finkelstein has conducted research projects in the Canadian High Arctic (Victoria, Ellesmere, Baffin, Bylot and Prince of Wales Islands, and Melville and Boothia Peninsulas), the Hudson Bay Lowlands in Ontario’s Far North, as well as Barro Colorado Island in Panama, coastal wetlands of the lower Great Lakes, the Turkey Lakes Watershed and other sites in central Ontario.

Dr Finkelstein is a Past President of  Canadian Quaternary Association and serves as an associate editor for  Wetlands, the journal of the Society of Wetland Scientists. She is also a member of  American Geophysical Union,  Canadian Association of Palynologists,  PAGES Working Groups and  the Society of Wetland Scientists.

She is a professor in botany-vegetation history/palaeoecology and work within/coordinate several projects on environmental-vegetation history over long time perspective. This research has applications within archeology and present environmental questions such as management of cultural landscapes, biodiversity, and climate development. She is also research coordinator for Environmental Science that includes seven research groups. These groups build up the Section of Environmental Science and Technology (EST).She is overall coordinator of the PAGES LandCover6K Working Group since it began in 2015 which is now in its second phase with two distinct components - pollen based Landcover reconstruction and Archeology based land use mapping. This working group continues to work closely with INQUA HABCOM through the IFG HoLA.

William is an Associate Professor in Palaeoecology and Head of the Department of Ecosystem & Landscape Dynamics within the Institute of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam. He is interested in understanding how, and why, ecosystems have developed over long (Quaternary) timescales at big (landscape-continental) spatial scales. To achieve this he employes a multi-proxy approach to studying lake sediments, often featuring the analysis of pollen (for vegetation reconstruction) and charcoal (for fire history resonstruction), and often in the tropics (South America and Africa). To find out more visit his blog "Ecology of the past" ( www.ecologyofthepast.info). 

I study crustal deformation and past earthquakes using geophysical, geological, and remote sensing techniques with a focus on paleoseismology and tectonic geomorphology. My study areas comprised extensional settings like Germany, USA, Spain, and Greece, and areas of active shortening in Central Asia. I am also interested in tsunami studies and archaeogeophysics. Currently I am investigating active faulting in the Alps in the framework of SPP2017 together with colleagues from RWTH Aachen and GFZ Potsdam. I blog about paleoseismology and active tectonics at www.paleoseismicity.org.

Yanni Gunnell is Professor of Physical Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Lyon, France. He studies the archives of environmental change and the timescales of continental denudation and material transfer across the landscape. His multidisciplinary focus on geochronology and landscape evolution scenarios adopts a comparative approach, which ranges from cratonic environments to mountain belts and covers different climatic settings. He has worked in parts of India, Africa, Brazil, Peru, North America, Madagascar and Europe, and has published widely in peer-reviewed journals that cover geomorphology, Quaternary geology, geodynamics, as well as geoarchaeology, environmental history, and the social sciences.

Aritina Haliuc holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Suceava, she is interested in unravelling the Earth's past, and how humans have changed its face. She nurtures a great interest in knowledge sharing, transfer and raising awareness about the state of the environment and the world we live in and the actions that should be taken to protect this natural inheritance.

I am a Quaternary geologist and sedimentologist. A significant part of my research focusses  on the reconstruction of the Holocene palaeoenvironmental evolution of coastal and fluvial plains and natural hazards. Present research activities include  the understanding of regional as well as local driving forces (e.g. relative sea-level change, neo-tectonics, sediment budget…) of coastal change and the study of human impact on rivershifting and megafan development. Moreover, I am studying the sedimentary record of natural hazard events and  in particularly tsunami.  I have worked in the Middle East (Iraq, Iran), Asia (Japan, Thailand) and the Eastern Mediterranean region (Syria).

Jonathan is Professor of Physical Geography and Director of the Environmental Change Research Centre within the Department of Geography at University Ciollege London. He works on lake records of past climate, primarily from the late Pleistocene and Holocene (but occasionally extending to the pre-Quaternary), with emphasis on abrupt climate change in middle and low latitude regions. His main research 'tools' are ostracods and stable isotopes.

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Archaeology, University of York, UK, soon to take up a Marie Curie Fellowship between York and Macquarie University, Australia. Trained in geoarchaeology at the University of Cambridge and Reading, I utilise geoarchaeological techniques from the site to landscape scale (soil micromorphology, sedimentology, geomorphology) to examine human-environment interactions during the Late Pleistocene, with a particular emphasis on the emergence and global spread of modern humans in presently arid and semi-arid environments. My research focuses mainly on the Middle East and North Africa, and most recently on the relationship between landscape evolution, lithic artefact distribution and hominin behaviour in southwestern Saudi Arabia. I also have strong research interests in reconstructing Quaternary sea level change, and its implications for examining the utilisation of coastlines by humans throughout history.

Masami Izuho is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Tokyo Metropolitan University. In 2011, he received the Quaternary Research Award of the Japan Association for Quaternary Research. He specializes in the lithic technologies and geoarchaeology of the Upper Paleolithic in Northeast Asia. He has worked in Russia, Mongolia, and Japan and is currently conducting archaeological and geoarchaeological investigations at the Shimaki site in Hokkaido, which is yielding chipped stone technology dating to the Last Glacial Maximum. Masami has also worked on the problem of Quaternary megafaunal extinction in Japan, attempting to understanding human-environment interaction in insular northeast Asia.

I’m an archaeologist currently working on the Palaeolithic hominin behaviour in the Middle Wainganga basin, Central India. My research is focused on the behavioural implications of the distribution of Palaeolithic sites and the technological strategies noted during the Acheulian and the Late Palaeolithic phase.

Atte is a professor of environmental change at the University of Helsinki as well as Vice-Dean of Societal Interaction of the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences. His major research topics include climate change and its ecological and societal impacts, with particular reference to Holocene climatic and environmental changes, critical transitions, carbon cycling, black carbon particles, peatland dynamics and Arctic regions. Korhola has more than 120 publications in international peer-reviewed journals on these topics and belongs to the Editorial Boards of Journal of Paleolimnology and Quaternary International. He is a Board member of the Environment Programme of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) and the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS). He is also Fellow of the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA) and has acted as consultant and adviser for several companies/enterprises on climate matters. Korhola is actively involved in the public debate on climate change and its policy options.

Daniela Kröhling is Senior Researcher of CONICET (National Research Council) and Professor at Universidad Nacional del Litoral (UNL), Santa Fe, Argentina. She is a Doctor in Geological Sciences, with a broad interest in Quaternary geology, stratigraphy, sedimentology, geomorphology, neotectonics and palaeoclimatology.  Main study regions are the Argentine Chaco-Pampa plain, the Paraná basaltic plateau in Southern Brazil and Northeastern Argentina and the Southern Puna (Altiplano) plateau in the Central Andes. She is coordinating research projects focusing on the analysis of climate and tectonic influences on terrestrial processes of representative regions of South America during the Quaternary, the study of extreme wind events at the Puna plateau, the reconstruction of long-term landscape evolution of the Paraná Plateau and the Uruguay River Basin. Kröhling also works on the Holocene dynamics of large alluvial plains and of the Paraná River Delta.

Amaelle is the Director of Research for the CNRS within the Laboratories des Sciences du Climate et de l'Environment. Her research interests comprise palaeoclimate, ice cores, stable isotope geochemistry, biogeochemical cycling and the hydrological cycle. 

Pete Langdon is a Professor of Quaternary Science within Geography & Environment at the University of Southampton, UK. He is primarily interested in palaeolimnology, specifically subfossil chironomids (non-biting midges). Beyond this specialism he has wide ranging interests, broadly focused around reconstructing climate change; geoarchaeology; lacustrine biogeochemical cycling; and biodiversity studies. He currently works on a range of research projects including: biogeochemical interactions in Arctic lakes, with foci on the role of methane derived carbon within food-webs, and the impact of landscape change drivers on lake carbon and nitrogen cycling; better understanding of regime shifts (tipping points) in lake ecosystems, and comparing empirical data with modelling theory; and using a range of palaeoenvironmental techniques (insects, biomarkers, aDNA) to understand why and how the building of lake settlement islands (crannogs) fit into Celtic landscapes over the last 3000 years. He is currently working on lake ecosystems in every continent bar Antarctica.

Annie is a coastal geomorphologist with specific interests in identifying sedimentary signatures of coastal hazards, interpreting late-Quaternary climatic and environmental changes, and understanding coastal changes at various timescales. She has conducted research in multiple Pacific Island Nations and Asian countries. She also studies the coastal evolution and Holocene climatic variations through sediment deposits in Australia.

Rachael is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow within the Biogeochemistry Research Group at Plymouth University. Rachael is palaeoclimatogist and geochemist currently working on IODP material offshore Japan. 

CH-QUAT (Swiss Quaternary Society)

After graduating at the University of Milan (Italy) in Natural Sciences (Botany), I worked as a contract scientist at the Archaeological Museum of Como and left the team in 1993 to start a PhD at the University of Cambridge. After finishing my PhD I took up a position as research fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, also teaching archaeology and human evolution at the Institute for Continuing Education (Madingly Hall) of the University of Cambridge. In 2004 I became affiliated lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and in 2005 director of studies in archaeology and anthropology at St. Edmund's College in the University of Cambridge. Since July 2005 I am ICREA research professor first at the IMF-CSIC and from 2014 at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. I currently coordinate the Complexity and Socio-Ecological Dynamics (CaSEs) research group and I teach in the UPF Master in Global History.  

My background is in archaeobotany and environmental archaeology, and I investigate the socio-ecological dynamics of past human populations from Mediterranean to tropical environments. My interests span from past vegetation histories, the modelling and simulation of processes in human behavioural change, people-plants co-evolutionary dynamics, long term trajectories of biodiversity and sustainability in prehistoric societies, and the origin and resilience of agriculture. Agriculture had an immense impact on humans and non-humans, and the future of our world is linked to making agriculture sustainable by maintaining biodiversity, revaluating traditional knowledge and mitigating environmental impact. Key areas for my work are South and West Asia, and South America.

Guido Stefano Mariani is a junior researcher at the Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy.

His research focuses on geomorphology and palaeopedology as tools in geoarchaeological investigations and in the study of the interaction between palaeoenvironment and human populations. His main interests are the reconstruction of past landscape changes from soils and archaeological deposits and the understanding of human resilience strategies during past environmental crises.

Jennifer Marlon is an Associate Research Scientist at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC). Jennifer uses surveys, experiments, modeling, and other methods to study people’s perceptions of and responses to environmental change, particularly relating to climate and extreme weather events. Jennifer also conducts research in paleoecology and paleoclimate using sediment records. She developed a Global Charcoal Database that houses hundreds of sediment records from lakes, soils, and oceans around the world.The dataset has been used to understand the response of fire regimes to abrupt climate changes, the role of fire in the expansion of agriculture during the Holocene, and human impacts on fire during the Industrial Era.

I am a geologist that researches Active Tectonics, Neotectonics, and Paleoseismology in distinct tectonic settings in the world. My research focuses on the characterization of the deformation in sediments, rocks, and landforms. For that I conduct field surveys, frequently supported by remote sensing analysis, and when possible complemented with geophysical, geodetic, and geochronologic data.

Julieta's research focuses on fossil insects (chironomids) from lake sediments for environmental and climate reconstructions during the Quaternary. Julieta is a Senior Researcher at CONICET and head of the CENAC (biodiversity program in the Nahuel Huapi National Park in Patagonia Argentina)

Dr. McCalpin was trained in geomorphology, Quaternary stratigraphy, and soil stratigraphy at the University of Colorado-Boulder (MS 1975). He applied these skills working at U.S. Geological Survey for two years in Alaska and California. In Los Angeles he was introduced to field techniques in the newly-emerging science of Paleoseismology. He then returned to Colorado in 1978 to perform its first paleoseismology PhD project at the Colorado School of Mines (PhD 1981). After a year working as County Geologist of Jefferson County, CO, he joined the Geology Dept. faculty at Utah State University where he taught geomorphology, photogeology, groundwater geology, and engineering geology for 9 years. In 1990 he founded GEO-HAZ Consulting and in 1991 left academia to pursue geohazards consulting full-time. In the past 30 years he has performed more than 175 projects for clients worldwide, specializing in hazard analysis and mitigation of earthquake surface faulting, deep-seated gravitational slope deformation, landslides, debris flows, and subsidence processes. His book Paleoseismology (Academic Press, 1996; 2009) has become the standard international reference work, and has been translated into Russian (2012) and Chinese (2019 in press).

Jerry McManus is a Senior Staff member of the Geochemistry Division of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences of Columbia University. His research primarily utilizes deep-sea sediments and is focused on reconstructing natural variability in the Earth’s climate and the large-scale ocean circulation, with a special focus on the role that the ocean plays in abrupt climate change.

Nivedita is working as a Woman Scientist (WOS-A DST) at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences Lucknow, India. Her research interest include Quaternary Palaeoclimatic investigations based on multi-proxy data, such as palynological, mineral magnetic and Carbon isotope records from sub-surface sediments of Eastern Himalaya and parts of northeastern India. Presently she is working on Lake sediments from the Eastern Himalaya for palaeoclimatic studies in the monsoon dominated of Northeast India. She has also worked on Tree-ring records from various parts of the Himalayas

He is Professor of Geology at Università dell’Insubria, Como, Italy, with ca. 30 years of experience in Paleoseismology and Active Tectonics. Most of his research is focused on the reconstruction of the recent landscape evolution in order to define geological criteria for assessing natural hazards, in particular, seismicity. This includes the application of paleoseismological analyses, the integration of historical and instrumental seismicity data with observations from Quaternary, dominantly Holocene, stratigraphy, geomorphology and tectonics, to understand the styles and rates of ongoing crustal deformation, their interaction with climatically-controlled surface processes and, with that information, define the seismic potential at both local and regional scales. This research ranges from laboratory analysis of airphoto coverages and topographic imagery, to field mapping of recent landforms and deposits, to geomorphic reconstruction of slip rates and paleoearthquake histories of capable faults, also through detailed studies of trench exposures showing evidence for Holocene earthquake surface faulting. Of particular interest for this research is also the study of earthquake ground effects and their use in the macroseismic intensity scales. 

Dr Keely Mills is a palaeolimnologist based at the British Geological Survey and is a Geographer and Quaternary scientist by training. Her research focuses on environmental and climate change, particularly on understanding the effects of human impacts on freshwater and estuarine ecosystems, using a palaeoecological approach to define baseline conditions. She has a particular interest in understanding how resilient lake ecosystems are to future climate and environmental changes, which is crucial for vulnerable but ecologically important freshwater resources, especially those under increasing pressure from human activity, pollution and modification.

I have completed my Masters in History from Mumbai University, Maharashtra in 2005. I completed my Post Graduate Diploma course in Archaeology and Ancient Indian History and Culture from Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune, Maharashtra in 2012. From 2013- 2019, I pursued my Ph.D. research in Palaeolithic Archaeology and have recently submitted my thesis. I have been on 3 excavations at different sites during this period and have done 4 seasons of exploration in my own study region. My expertise covers Palaeolithic lithic typo-technological knowledge along with understanding the landscape scales hominin behavioural patterns as observed during my fieldwork.

Dr Encarni Montoya is a Beatriu de Pinos (Marie Curie Cofund Fellow) postdoctoral researcher based at the Earth Sciences Institute "Jaume Almera" (CSIC-ICTJA) in Barcelona, Spain. Previously, she has been a NERC Fellow at the Open University (UK), and worked at The Botanical Institute of Barcelona (CSIC-ICUB) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is a palaeoecologist mainly focused on Late Glacial environmental change in the Neotropics. Her main interests are related to the vegetation shifts produced by climatic changes and human occupation. For this purpose, she mainly uses pollen, microscopic charcoal and non-pollen palynomorphs analyses (complemented with other palaeoecological proxies, biogeography, archaeology and anthropology data among others). Moreover, she is interested in the usefulness of paleoecological data to learn about traditional ecosystem services, and improve conservation strategies, landscape management and projected scenarios for climate change.

Her research, focusing primarily on South Asia and, to a lesser extent, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and the Southwestern United States, addresses a number of related issues including: the formation and transformation of anthropogenic landscapes; the causes and consequences of agricultural change; colonialism and imperialism; and the interplay between political power, economic organization, and social strategies of production and exchange.More on this  https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pennpaleoecology/research/
She is the coordinator of the Landuse 6K part of PAGES LandCover6K Working Group since it began in 2015 and is now in its second phase. This is the Archeology based land use mapping of LC6K. She has been working closely with INQUA HABCOM through the IFG HoLA.

My research is broadly centered on using sediment cores to evaluate past changes in Southern Hemisphere climate, carbon cycling, and marine biogeochemical cycling. I use the geologic record to identify how large-scale coupled climate modes and key components of the global climate system have changed in the past and how the variability and magnitude of past change compares to modern observations. I primarily apply light stable isotopes, major element geochemistry, and natural abundance radiocarbon to lacustrine, peatland, marine, and fjord sediment records obtained from New Zealand, the subantarctic Auckland Islands, southern South America, and the Gulf of Alaska to evaluate past change.

As a trained geologist specializing in sedimentary geology, stratigraphy, sea level science and sequence stratigraphy, my research revolves around my enduring fascination with sea level change and sediment transportation. I focus on the reconstruction of past sea levels through diverse proxies and techniques across various temporal and geographic scales. These reconstructions provide valuable insights into past ice sheet configurations, palaeoclimate conditions, and vertical movements of the Earth

My research concerns Ecology, Biogeography and Evolutionary Biology. It mainly investigates the mechanisms underlying population and community dynamics at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Theoretical and methodological approaches are developped and applied to study tropical and temperate ecosystems (tropical forests in India and New Caledonia, grasslands and weed communities in Europe, high-elevation peatlands in Bolivia...).

Orijemie’s main scientific interest lies in exploring palynomorphs (pollen and spores) in terrestrial and marine sediments from the tropics in the reconstruction of palaeoenvironmental settings, vegetation changes and climate dynamics in the geologic past. Orijemie also focuses on human (hominin)-environmental dynamics within archaeological contexts particularly in tropical Africa.

Lewis's research and teaching focuses on understanding the nature and dynamics of Quaternary paleoenvironmental change and landscape evolution, environmental geology and natural hazards along active plate margins. Lewis has concentrated his efforts on two major geologic-geographic regions: 1) the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen; and 2) the western Cordilleras of North and South America. This is because these regions provide some of the best natural laboratories for understanding the dynamics of geomorphic, tectonic and climatic processes, and ultimately they provide analogs for understanding the evolution of many ancient plate boundaries. Lewis has also undertaken research in other regions, including the American Midwest, Egypt, Venezuela, Morocco, Trinidad, Thailand, Yemen, Azerbaijan and the United Kingdom.

Prof. Shanti Pappu, is the founder/secretary, Sharma Centre for Heritage Education (SCHE), India. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Deccan College, researching the prehistoric archaeology of northern Tamil Nadu, under the guidance of Prof.K.Paddayya. She has over 20 years of experience in prehistoric archeology, directing (along with Dr. Kumar Akhilesh) research projects at the Palaeolithic sites of Attirampakkam and Sendrayanpalayam and microlithic sites of southern Tamil Nadu. She is jointly directing (with Dr. K.Akhilesh) the project Prehistory and Palaeoenvironments in SE India including regional surveys, test-pits and excavations, with multidisciplinary research inputs from geomorphological, chronological and palaeoenvironmental studies. The use of satellite imagery and GIS with field surveys and laboratory studies was also conducted to investigate both research and heritage management issues in northern Tamil Nadu. She has recruited and coordinated international teams from Spain, France, the USA and Sri Lanka to work in India, and has established collaborations with key research institutions in India and abroad. She is researching the life and work of R.B.Foote and is interested in the issues related to the history of archaeology in India. She has published 2 books and over 30 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature (2018) and Science (2011). She is recently appointed Advisory board, INQUA-HaBCom and Executive Committee, IPPA, and is Joint-Secretary, ISPQS. She has participated in conferences/workshops in India and abroad; and along with K.Akhilesh has organized workshops on prehistory under the R.B.Foote Memorial series in India. She is responsible for developing the public archaeology and outreach programs at the SCHE and in developing the children’s museum. Her interests lie in prehistory and Quaternary studies, history of archaeology, ethno-and experimental archaeology. 

Dr. Peros received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of Toronto, his M.Sc. from York University (also in geography), and his B.Sc. in archaeological sciences and geography from the University of Toronto. His graduate work focused on environmental change and prehistoric human adaptations in Cuba. Following the completion of his Ph.D., Dr. Peros moved to the Laboratory for Paleoclimatology and Climatology at the University of Ottawa, where he researched arctic climate change under the direction of Dr. Konrad Gajewski. Dr. Peros’s current research involves studying the history of hurricane impacts in the Caribbean, and prehistoric environmental-human interactions in North America. He also serves as Vice-President of the Canadian Quaternary Association (CANQUA) and he is the Director of the graduate-level Micro-program in Climate Change at Bishop’s University.

Dr. Peros is a broadly trained physical geographer working at the interface between the climatological, ecological, and archaeological sciences. His research seeks to answer fundamental questions within two broad areas: (1) what have been the driving forces behind climate and landscape change during the Late Quaternary? and (2), how has the natural environment constrained/provided opportunities for cultural and biological change? To address questions in these areas, he uses a field- and laboratory-based approach, integrating information derived from geological (e.g., sedimentological, geochemical) and paleoecological (e.g., palynological) investigations with archaeological data. At present, his regional specializations include eastern Canada, the Caribbean, and northeastern China.

Rathnasiri Premathilake is currently working as a Senior Lecturer at the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeolog y, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and his main work includes postgraduate level teaching, fieldwork, laboratory experiments, excavations and field-surveys. He completed PhD dissertations at the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, School of Geoscience, Stockholm University, Sweden in 2003. After completing his PhD, Premathilake has gone on to hold postdoctoral positions and postdoctoral vising research fellow in the School of Palaeoecology, Archaeology and Geography, Queens University, Belfast, UK and, he continues to work in close collaboration as an Associate Researcher with the Department of Ecology and Palynology, French Institute of Pondicherry and the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education in India. Broadly, Premathilake is involved research and education in the lines of Quaternary environmental reconstructions (vegetation and climate) and understanding human activities by means of palynology, micro-charcoal, organic carbon, michoriza fungi spores, foraminifera, dinoflagellate, thermally mature analysis and phytolith, together with radiocarbon dating on archaeological and palaeoecological sites in south and southeast Asia.

I am working now as a post-doc at Chieti-Pescara University, Italy. I am a geologist working on active tectonics and earthquake geology in extensional settings. My research interests focus on detecting tectonic signals from landforms by morphotectonics and deformed sediments through paleoseismological investigations

Lynne Quick is a Senior Research Fellow associated with the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in South Africa. She is a palynologist with interests in palaeoecology and palaeoclimatology. She is working on the development of new palaeoenvironmental records in southern Africa and has a key focus on the vegetation history and past climate dynamics of the Cape Floristic Region. She has spent the last year establishing a state-of-the-art palaeobotanical laboratory at NMU and hopes that through her leadership, this facility will produce new, innovative, palynological research.

Lynne is the President of Southern African Society for Quaternary Research (SASQUA), a member of the South African National Committee for INQUA and a member of the scientific steering committee of the AFQUA (African Quaternary: Environments, Ecology and Humans) initiative.

Erick is an archaeologist specializing in geochronology, palaeodemography, lithic technology and subsistence intensification in the western US and Europe. His research focuses on human adaptations to palaeoenvironmental change and the development of socio-economic complexity in hunter-gatherer and early farming societies. He has ongoing field projects in Utah and Wyoming, and is currently conducting comparative research on late Holocene demographic collapses between North and South America.

Laura Sadori is an Italian palynologist and archaeobotanist.

She carries out palaeoecological studies, devoting herself to researches aimed to palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstructions in the Mediterranean basin. She aims to evaluate the degree of human impact and of the changes induced by climate.

She cooperates with archaeologists, geologists and architects in the study of a number of Italian and foreign historical and prehistorical sites.

Sourav’s research and teaching focus on reconstructing Quaternary paleoenvironmental change, landscape evolution, and contemporary surface processes using field and remote sensing mapping, geochronology techniques, sedimentological and stratigraphical analyses, lake sediment coring, and numerical modeling. Sourav currently is a postdoc at the University of California, Los Angeles where he is extensively using luminescence dating techniques to answer outstanding research questions in sediment dynamics, paleoseismology, paleoclimatology, thermoluminescence, and archeology in the American southwest, Alaska, and New Zealand. His doctoral research at the University of Cincinnati focused on reconstructing Quaternary glaciations and quantifying headwall erosion rates in the Himalaya and Tibet using terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) dating. He also worked with micro and macro sedimentology of subglacial landforms in the Indian Himalaya during his Masters at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He currently also teaches online geology courses at Northern Kentucky University. Sourav enjoys fieldwork in the remote wilderness and is ready to share/collaborate if you have an exciting project in mind.

Mohamed Sahnouni is currently Research Professor and Coordinator of the Archaeology Program at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH) (Spain). He received doctoral degrees in Quaternary Geology from the University Pierre & Marie Curie (France) and in Anthropology from Indiana University Bloomington (USA). His academic and research interests include Paleoanthropology (with focus on early hominin technological and subsistence behavior in relation to Paleoecology), Old World Paleolithic Archaeology, Prehistory of North Africa, Plio-Pleistocene Stratigraphy and Paleoecology, Geoarchaeology and Bone Taphonomy. Sahnouni is currently directing paleoanthropological research projects in Africa involving a multidisciplinary international team of scientists to investigate: 1) the timing and character of earliest human occupation in North Africa; and 2) Homo erectus behavior and adaptation in arid environment. He is also collaborating with Indian colleagues to investigate hominin dispersal in Asia. He extensively published his research in high impact journals including Science, Journal of Human Evolution, Journal of Archaeological Science, Quaternary Science Reviews, Quaternary International, Geobios, L’Anthropologie, Palevol, etc.

Maria Fernanda Sanchez Goñi is Professor of Paleoclimatology at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes-Paris Science Lettres (EPHE, PSL University) and works at the EPOC laboratory (Environnements et Paléoenvironnements Océaniques et Continentaux) of the University of Bordeaux. Expert in the study of pollen grains preserved in deep-sea sedimentary sequences, Maria Fernanda works on the dynamics of climate changes, glacial-interglacial and abrupt cycles, over the last million years and, in particular, on the interaction between vegetation-atmosphere-ocean-ice caps, and the impact of these changes on human evolution. He has led or participated in numerous national and international projects such as the ERC Advanced Grant TRACSYMBOLS, the RESOLUTION project funded by the European Science Foundation and the ACER project (Abrupt Climate Changes and Environmental Responses) funded by the International Quaternary Association (INQUA). He is currently President of the French Association for the Study of Quaternary (AFEQ) and a member of the Milutin Milankovitch Medal Committee of the European Geophysical Union (EGU).

Antje is Professor of Geology and Geosystems and founded the institute of Geosystems and Bioindication (IGeo), working at the interface of geo- and biosciences. Her team uses remains from aquatic organisms from lake and estuarine sediments and geochemical proxies to monitor the response of the aquatic system and water quality to climate change and human impact. Most important areas of research currently are the Tibetan Plateau, Central America and Central Europe.

Alistair is a (palaeo)-ecologist, studying ecological responses to environmental change across a range of timescales.

Martin Seeliger is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Physical Geography at the Goethe-University Frankfurt with particular interests in Geoarchaeology, coastal Geomorphology and Sea-level studies. His current work deals with landscape changes in the northwestern Nile Delta (Egypt). By using a multi-proxy approach, he investigates the fluctuations of former Nile branches and their connection to ancient tells of that region. Furthermore, he aims to establish further local relative sea-level curves for the Aegean Sea.

Lyudmila's main scientific interest lies in exploring microscopic biological remains in all kinds of the sediment all over the world for reconstruction of environmental settings, vegetation changes and climate dynamic in the past. Coming to palaeoecology from neoecology, she likes to establish connections between extant and fossil taxa and discover their values as palaeoecological indicators. In Quaternary palaeoecology, Lyudmila especially focuses on the Holocene dynamic of the forest-steppe ecotone working in Ukraine, southern Russia, Urals, Siberia, Mongolia, Caucasus, Iran and Turkey.

Ashok Kumar Singhvi is currently working as a Honorary Professor and J.C. Bose National Fellow at the Physical Research Laboratory (Department of Space, Govt. of India), Ahmedabad, India. A physicist by training, he has close to four decades of experience in Quaternary Geochronology and Paleoclimatology. He is known for his fundamental work on luminescence dating of Desert Sands and has provided event chronologies for most deserts of the world. He suggested that different deserts responded differently and episodically, to same climate forcing. This implied the need for changes in conventional concepts. He has also worked on global dust sequences and demonstrated their episodic accretion to suggest fundamental difficulties in their correlation with marine and ice core records. He developed luminescence dating of pedogenic carbonates, fulgurites, carbonate, gypsum and volcanic ashes and has contributed extensively to the methodological development of this technique. He has contributed over 170 papers in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and edited about 16 special issues of journals.

Singhvi has worked on the executive committee of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programs's - PAGES (Past Global Changes) core project; Science Program Committee of the UN- International Year of Earth and was the co-leader of two International Geological Correlation Programs IGCP-349 on Desert Margins and Paleomonsoons and IGC-413 on Past and Future Evolution of Deserts. He is on the Editorial Boards of Quaternary Research (Associate Editor), Quaternary Science Reviews, J. Quaternary Science, The Holocene, Ancient TL, J. Earth Environment Mediterranean Archeology and Archeometry, Episodes and is a Member of the Senior Adv. Panel of Springer Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science.

Singhvi is a Fellow of Indian National Science Academy, The Third World Academy of Sciences and is a Life time Honorary Fellow of the Geological Societies of London and India. He was the Chair Indian Committee for IUGS and INQUA and Chairs, Indian Ministry of Earth Sciences' funding committees for Geosciences and for Paleoclimates. Singhvi has been a recipient of several recognitions'/awards, including the Geological Society of America's Farouk El Baz Award for Desert Sciences.

Rajiv's research interests comprise: river science - river morphology and dynamics, flood hazards, morphology-ecology linkages; remote sensing and GIS applications; and climate change and palaeoclimate reconstructions. 

Pradeep Srivastava is a Quaternary Geologist trained in sedimentology and luminescence dating as applied to varied settings of continental climate and tectonics. Largely, Pradeep utilizes the river systems to evaluate the impact of climate variability and tectonics on landscapes. Himalaya, Ganga foreland, Namib Deserts and Alluvial plains of SE United States have been major geographic areas of his contributions where he develop records of neotectonic evolution, extreme hydrological events, paleoclimate, palaeoseismology, glacial chronologies etc.

Research interests: I am a researcher in neotectonics and tectonic geomorphology working at the Department of Neotectonics and Thermochronology at the IRSM. I study long-term morphotectonic evolution of areas of interest and tectonic activity of selected faults. To assess the geodynamic evolution and tectonic activity I combined methods of tectonic geomorphology, structural geology, geomorphological mapping, paleoseismic trenching, shallow geophysics, and monitoring of current movements. After participating on paleoseismic surveys on various plate boundaries (e.g. in Spain, California, Mexico, Israel, India) I currently work on late Cenozoic tectonic structures and capable faults in intraplate regions of central Europe, mainly in the Bohemian Massif.

Dr. Prabhin Sukumaran is an accomplished Quaternary geologist with expertise in geomorphological modeling, GIS, remote sensing, micro-seismic studies, geochemical analysis, micro-paleontology, sedimentology, environmental magnetic research, geo-archaeology, paleoanthropology, and climatic reconstructions. He is currently affiliated with Charotar University of Science and Technology (CHARUSAT), Gujarat. Dr. Sukumaran's distinguished career includes prestigious awards and fellowships at both national and international levels, including the Indian National Science Academy visiting scientist fellowship and Fulbright-Nehru academic and professional excellence fellowship.

Thijs van Kolfschoten studied Geology and Biology and obtained his PhD in Palaeontology at the Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Utrecht (The Netherlands). After a research position at the Institute of Palaeontology, University of Bonn (Germany) he moved to Leiden University (The Netherlands) where he is working as Professor in Palaeozoology and Quaternary Biostratigraphy at the Faculty of Archaeology.

His main fields of interest are Quaternary mammals, biostratigraphy, palaeoecology and taphonomy. His palaeontological research focuses on continental deposits with an age that ranges from the Early Pleistocene until the early Holocene. A major research project is the study of the mammalian vertebrate fossils from a sequence exposed at Schöningen (Germany); a sequence that plays an important role in the debate on the late Middle Pleistocene climatic and faunal history. The Palaeolithic sites of Schöningen yielded a large amount of mammalian remains with features that indicate exploitation by Lower Palaeolithic hominins. The study of these features is also part of the current research project.

During the past decade, changes in Late Pleistocene and early Holocene ecosystems in Europe north of the Alps have been investigated in close collaboration with Russian colleagues; past projects are: The evolution of the mammalian fauna and flora in Western, Central and Eastern Europe during the Pleistocene – Holocene transition (25 - 10 kyr B.P.) combining well-dated flora and fauna data and The Collapse of the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem (COMSEC) investigating the disintegration of the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem at the level of faunal assemblages as well as at species level. Currently, studies on the Late Pleistocene faunal evolution focus on eastern Siberia.

Thijs was President of the INQUA Subcommission (now Section) on European Stratigraphy (SEQS) from 1995 to 2003, and he was President of INQUA Netherlands from 1999 to 2008 when he was the national Delegate representative at the INQUA International Council meetings in Durham (1999), Reno (2003) and Cairns (2007). He has been regional Editor (Europe) of Quaternary International from 2003 to 2015. In addition, he has been a member of SACCOM from 2003 to present, and Secretary of SACCOM from 2011 to 2015. He was member of the steering-committee of APEX (Arctic Palaeoclimate and its Extremes), which forms an umbrella programme for European Arctic palaeoclimate research. He was secretary of the IUGS Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, member of the scientific advisory board of Senckenberg Research Institute (Frankfurt, Germany) and the Centre of Archaeological Sciences (Leuven, Belgium).

Currently, Thijs van Kolfschoten is the director of a well-equipped laboratory for palaeozoological and archaeozoological studies at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and head of the Bioarchaeology Research Group.

My research interests are ecology and ecosystems in lakes. I am skilled in looking for tipping points in ecosystems, detecting early warning signals of critical transition, and indicators of ecosystem structure. I mainly forcus on diatoms but also interests on other phytoplankton and zooplankton.

She is a palaeoecologist and environmental archaeologist with a broad interest in late Quaternary environmental change. Her specialist expertise lies in the analysis of sub-fossil beetles in a variety of palaeoenvironments. Much of her work has been concerned with human-environment interactions in the early–mid Holocene, and associated long term biodiversity change, late glacial climate change, early Holocene landscape structure in response to natural and human-induced change, and the transition to agriculture in the Neolithic.

Jessie Woodbridge is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow on the "Changing the face of the Mediterranean" project at Plymouth University (UK) (School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences), and previously worked on the Deforesting Europe project also at Plymouth. This research aims to reconstruct changes in European land cover over Holocene timescales using pollen data. Jessie's research background is focused on reconstruction of Holocene palaeoenvironmental change using palaeoecological techniques based on peat and lake-sediment archives. She completed her PhD in 2009 and since this time has been prolific in publishing in various journals, such as Quaternary Science Reviews, Journal of Biogeography, and Journal of Palaeolimnology.

Dr. Chenxi Xu is a dendrochronologist based on Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on tree ring and global changes using stable isotopes in tree ring to reconstruct high-resolution climate history in subtropical and tropical areas. He has a particular interest in monsoon changes on inter-annual to centennial time scales.

Yang’s research focuses on palaeoclimate reconstruction utilizing aeolian deposits. He has been working intensively in the loess areas of northern China and southern Tajikistan, where sedimentological and geochemical records were obtained as his primary tools to reconstruct palaeoenvironment. Most of his work to date has involved studies of the shift in the Asian monsoonal rainbelt during past warm intervals (e.g., the Quaternary interglacials and Pliocene warm periods). 

Qiuzhen is Research Associate of F.R.S.-FNRS and Associate Professor of Université catholique de Louvain. Her research is on paleoclimate modelling and is focused on understanding the interglacial climates of the Quaternary. She also works on understanding the Chinese loess by using soil and climate models. 

Andrea Zerboni is Professor of Geomorphology and Geoarchaeology at the University of Milano, Italy. His main interests are in Quaternary Geology, Geomorphology, and Geoarchaeology of circum-Mediterranean regions and arid lands of Africa and Asia. He is investigating how past climatic changes influenced surface processes and how the landscape and archaeological communities reacted to new environmental conditions. His approach starts with a detailed palaeoenvironmental reconstruction on the basis of geomorphological and palaeohydrological indicators, and terrestrial archives (wind sediments, paleosols, lake sediments, calcareous tufa, fluvial sequences, anthropogenic sediments), followed by the comparison with the archaeological record. Andrea is also focusing on the climate-environment-human nexus over the Late Quaternary, investigating its complexity and nonlinearity. He apply geomorphological and geoarchaeological tools to interpret the formation of the archaeological record and the distribution of archaeological sites. He worked in a variety of cultural contexts spanning from the Palaeolithic to modern ethnographic case studies distributed in Italy, Sahara, Sahel of Sudan, Horn of Africa, Levant, Mesopotamia, and Arabian Peninsula. He is also interested in loess, palaeoseismology, palaeopedology, geomorphological mapping, and rock weathering. He investigated these topics at several localities of Northern Italy, North and East Africa, Western Asia, North America, and Antarctica.