PALCOM Officers

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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