RESEARCH TEAM

Meet the team in the Sclerochronology Research Group based at Exeter University’s Cornwall Campus in Penryn. Lead by Professor James Scourse, who has over 35 years’ expertise in reconstructing the history of the oceans, the team are unlocking the huge potential of this relatively new science. Sclerochronology is now enabling us to reconstruct the environmental and climate history of the oceans in unprecedented detail

Professor James Scourse

Research Team Leader

After completing a PhD and a Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge (Sub-department of Quaternary Research), James was appointed to a tenured position in the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University in 1985, moving his research group to the University of Exeter in February 2017. James held a Royal Society-Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship in 2008-2009, served as Editor of the Journal of Quaternary Science between 2000 and 2004, President of the UK Quaternary Research Association between 2008 and 2011, Director of the Climate Change Consortium of Wales between 2011 and 2015 and is now Director of the Centre for Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Exeter. He was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2014.

Dr. Paul Butler

Senior Research Fellow

Entering academia relatively late, Paul left a 25-year career as an IT consultant in London in 2001 to complete an undergraduate course in Ocean Science at the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University. Immediately after he was presented with a PhD opportunity in sclerochronology, during which he constructed a 487 year crossdated chronology for the Irish Sea using specimens of Arctica islandica. He was awarded his PhD in 2009.  In 2010 he received the Quaternary Research Association’s Lewis Penny medal for his PhD research and in 2014 he was awarded the Lyell Fund of the Geological Society of London for noteworthy published research in the Earth Sciences. Subsequently he was coordinator of the EU-funded Marie Curie ITN ARAMACC

Dr. David Reynolds

Research Fellow/ Lecturer

After completing a PhD in Ocean Science, David was appointed as post-doctoral research associate working to develop a millennial length annually resolved stable isotope record of past North Atlantic marine variability. Following this project, David was appointed as a lecturer at the School of Earth and Environmental Science, Cardiff University. During this time David was awarded funding (NERC Climate of the Last Millennium [CLAM] project) to continue work on reconstructing North Atlantic marine variability and establishing the first high resolution absolutely dated marine proxy networks. David then spent two years working as a Research Fellow at the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research (University of Arizona) David was appointed, in 2020, as a Research Fellow and Lecturer working as part of the SEACHANGE project.

DR. Tamara Trofimova

Research Fellow

Tamara has academic training in ecology and marine sciences. In 2018, she completed her PhD at the University of Bergen, as part of the EU-funded Marie Curie Initial Training Network ARAMACC. In her PhD project, she employed bivalve sclerochornological records to study Holocene marine climate in the northern North Sea. After completing her PhD, Tamara was appointed as a researcher at NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research. She was working on reconstructing past sea-ice variability in the Svalbard region using sclerochornological records from coralline red algae (Clathromorphum compactum). In 2023, Tamara joined the team as a postdoctoral researcher within the SEACHANGE project.

Dr. Alejandro Román-González

Research Fellow

After his Graduate Degree in Marine Sciences at Cadiz University, in 2010 Alejandro began his MSc in Marine Biology at Bangor University. His MSc dissertation assessed the potential of two Antarctic mollusc species as sclerochronological proxies for shallow Antarctic coastal waters. The research developed during his MSc resulted in 2013 in a fully funded PhD project by Cardiff University. On completion of his PhD, Alejandro took a postdoctoral researcher position at University of Exeter, Penryn Campus.

JAke Scolding

Research Technician

Jake studied at Bangor University graduating from his degree in Marine Biology (2005) and subsequent MSc in Shellfish Biology, Culture and Fisheries (2007). Since then Jake has been employed by Swansea University and the National Lobster Hatchery undertaking research projects involving the culture of a variety of fish and shellfish species. In 2021, Jake joined University of Exeter as a technician working on the SEACHANGE project.

Matthew Mason

PhD Researcher

Having completed a BSc and MSc by Research in Physical Geography at the University of Exeter, Matt has started a NERC GW4+ funded PhD studentship at the University of Exeter, working within the Sclerochronology Research Group. His project aims to establish long-term baselines of marine variability in the northwest European shelf seas using various proxies derived from the shell material of long-lived marine bivalves, providing context for modern oceanographic observations.

DR. Stella Alexandroff

Research Fellow

Stella studied Ecology at the University of Vienna and at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. Her diploma thesis focused on taxonomic diversity, reef zonation and growth forms in Recent and Pleistocene coral reefs in the Red Sea. Graduating with a masters from the University of Vienna in 2013, Stella moved to Bangor in April 2014 as a PhD student and Marie Curie Research Fellow. Her PhD project is part of the EU-funded Marie Curie Initial Training Network ARAMACC and focuses on the hydrographic variability of the NE Atlantic.

Dr Sarah Holmes

PhD Researcher

After her BSc in Geography at Exeter University, Sarah began a NERC iCASE PhD studentship in collaboration with the University of Exeter, Bangor University and CEFAS. This PhD aims to use the long-term records from particular bivalve molluscs in UK shelf seas to validate and potentially improve the benthic component of ecosystem models (ERSEM).