Research
My research focuses on environmental humanities, climatic and environmental history, and specifically human responses to unusual or extreme weather events, conceptualisations of climate and climate variability in historical perspective and the links between climate, disease and the healthiness of place. My work has focused on colonial Mexico and nineteenth century Africa, for which I was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize. More recently I have led or co-led a range of funded projects related to climate history, the cultural spaces of climate and the production of climate knowledge in the UK, and the impacts of and responses to extreme weather events in historical perspective. Additional research interests include work on elemental heritage and the links between place, memory and local identity, and I am currently working on changing conceptualisations of the ‘home’ during the pandemic as part of a COVID-19 AHRC-funded award.
Environmental and climate history
My research focuses on environmental history, and specifically on climatic history and historical climatology, on human responses to unusual or extreme weather events, conceptualisations of climate variability in historical perspective and the links between climate and the healthiness of place. Much of my work has been concerned with colonial Mexico and nineteenth century Africa though for the past few years I have been working on various projects that focus on British climate history and I am PI on a large multi-institutional Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project exploring historical extreme weather events in UK history. I am currently President of the International Commission for the History of Meteorology, Editor of The Anthropocene Review, and I am a member of the Advisory Group for the AHRC's 'Care for the Future: thinking forward through the past' theme. I would be interested in hearing from potential PhD students with interests in climate and environmental history, the history of meteorology and the relationship between climate, health and wellbeing in histrorical perspective.
Selected record of research funding
2017-2018: Arts and Humanities Research Council PI:Weathering the storm: TEMPEST and engagement with the national weather memory (with Sarah Davies, Aberystwyth)
2016-2018: Arts and Humanities Research Council Co I Narratives of environmental risk: fate, luck and fortune £27,000 (with Esther Eidinow, Classics, Nottingham)
2013-2017: Arts and Humanities Research Council PI Spaces of experience and horizons of expectation: the implications of extreme weather events, past, present and future £1,006.000 incl FEC) (Co –I’s Sarah Davies and Cerys Jones, Aberystwyth, Neil Macdonald, Liverpool and Simon Naylor, Glasgow)
2013-2016: Arts and Humanities Research Council Co I The Power and the Water: environmental connectivities £860,000 (with Peter Coates, Bristol and Paul Warde, Cambridge)
2012-2013: Arts and Humanities Research Council PI Weather walks, weather talks: exploring popular climate histories and futures, £73, 274 (Co Is Gary Priestnall, Nottingham and Simon Naylor, Glasgow)
2012-2013: Arts and Humanities Research Council PI Snow Scenes: exploring the role of place in weather memory £60,000 (Co Is Gary Priestnall, Nottingham, Simon Naylor, Glasgow)
2010-2013: Leverhulme Trust Co I, Societal responses to El Niño-related climate extremes in southern Africa, £193,063 (with David Nash, Brighton and Dominic Kniveton, Sussex)
2010-2011: Arts and Humanities Research Council. PI Cultural Spaces of Climate Network (Researching Environmental Change Network) £23,873 (Co I Carol Morris, Nottingham)
2007-2010: British Academy Co I Amateur meteorology and the production of contemporary climate knowledge £6000 (with Carol Morris, University of Nottingham)
2005-2008: Leverhulme Trust PI Multidisciplinary investigations of climate change in Mexico £47,054.
2006: Royal Geographical Society- with the Institute of British Geographers Global Change initiative (Drying out: climate, water and society in central Mexico. £7000 (with Sarah Metcalfe, Nottingham) and Sarah Davies, Aberystwyth)
2005- 2007: Leverhulme Trust Awarded Philip Leverhulme Prize for Geography £50,000
2003-2004: British Academy PI. Women missionaries, climate and health in 19th century southern Africa £3784 (with Co I Dr. David Nash, Brighton)
1999-2000: British Academy Co-I Reconstructing regional climatic histories in the Kalahari £2602 (with Dr. David Nash, Brighton)
2000- 2003: Arts and Humanities Research Board PI Agrarian responses to extreme climatic events in central Mexico: 1521-1821 £128,519 (Co I Sarah O’Hara, Nottingham)
2000- 2002: Arts and Humanities Research Board Co I, The Pristine myth re-visited: pre- and post-Hispanic landscape change in Michoacán, Mexico £140,000 (with Sarah Metcalfe, Edinburgh, now Nottingham)
Research grants
A new approach to inclusive teamwork in Research and Impact leadership (Thrive)
RESEARCH ENGLAND (UK)
June 2023 - May 2025
'Stay home': rethinking the domestic during the Covid-19 pandemic
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
December 2020 - November 2022
AHRC IAA 22-25
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
April 2022 - January 2026
Integrated ClimAte Resilience UnderStanding (ICARUS) Belize (ICARUS)
LEVERHULME TRUST (UK)
February 2022 - January 2025
Additional Supplement HEIF Allocation 2020-21
RESEARCH ENGLAND (UK)
August 2020 - July 2021
PROSPER
RESEARCH ENGLAND (UK)
April 2021 - September 2023
UK Climate resilience
UK RESEARCH AND INNOVATION
February 2019 - June 2020
"Spaces of experience and horizons of expectation": the implications of extreme weather events, past, present and future
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
November 2013 - September 2017
The Power and the Water: Connecting Pasts and Futures
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
January 2017 - March 2017
Waterbodies (Cuerpos de Agua): public understandings of the socio-environmental aetiologies of unexplained kidney disease.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
December 2017 - December 2023
Weathering the storm: TEMPEST and engagement with the national weather memory
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
November 2017 - March 2019
Narratives of Environmental Risk: Fate, Luck and Fortune
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
January 2017 - December 2017