Sarah Holmes

About

After transferring from Queen Mary University of London, I graduated in 2015 with a BSc in Geography (with proficiency in Spanish) from the University of Exeter.

My undergraduate dissertation at Exeter led me to conduct 8 weeks of lab work at Bangor University’s School of Ocean Sciences at the invitation of Professor Chris Richardson (Head of SOS). During the stay, I learned techniques for preparing and processing bivalve shells for sclerochronology - the study of the growth lines on bivalve molluscs analogous to dendrochronology. The final project entitled “A sclerochronology of the English Channel – using the annually-resolved growth increments of Glycymeris glycymeris to infer recent marine palaeoenvironment” produced the first ever sclerochronology of the English Channel and added to the limited number of bivalve proxies in the UK and worldwide.

In my final year at Exeter I was offered a PhD with the University of Exeter, Bangor University and CEFAS. The aim of the project is to better understand the shelf sea environment with the aid of ecosystem models and the proxy records of long-lived bivalve molluscs.

QUALIFICATIONS

BSc. Geography with Proficiency in Spanish (University of Exeter)

PhD. Sclerochronology (University of Exeter)