About me
I am a British New Zealander who has spent their life between New Zealand and Europe. I have qualifications in photography, ecology, and geography and my professional interested are in natural history and landscape evolution.
My research experience is using tree-rings to understand ecological, hydrological and geomorphic processes. In particular I have worked developing the first annually resolved tree-ring chronology using Kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides, a wetland tree) from the Wairarapa Valley of New Zealand's North Island.
My conservation interests began while working as a landscape and natural history photographer. I found it very difficult to ignore the developing environmental problem relating from more intensive pressure on water resources.
After completing my Bachelor and Honours degrees in Wellington I moved to Germany to study in the prestigous Bonn University where I was fortunate enough to gain a place in the Tree-Ring Lab and to study in the renouned Water Resources Group.
I am an advocate for adopting water management strategies aligned with world best-practice and as such I continue to develop my research around revegetation methods, landscape evolution using dendrochronology, and developing funding resilience for conservation.
Developing a social enterprise making artisan paper products supports conservation by enabling low cost management strategies and the potential to independently raise funds.