The PCARB team
Principle Investigator
Dr Lisa Orme
Lisa’s Masters and PhD research investigated Holocene storminess in Europe, using wind-blown deposits of sand preserved within coastal peatlands. After her PhD Lisa worked on the MILLIPEAT Project, helping to analyse and compile data on past carbon accumulation rates spanning the last millennium and went on to do a postdoc at the Norwegian Polar Institute, developing records of past sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean. Lisa now works at Maynooth University in the ICARUS Climate Research Centre as part of the Geography department. She is currently leading the PCARB project and the HoStIr project (see link), a study developing records of past storminess spanning recent millennia.
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Email: lisa.orme@mu.ie
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Nannan Li
Nannan is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS) and the Department of Geography at Maynooth University. He is a palaeoclimatologist who employs a wide variety of techniques to deduce ancient climates during the past. Nannan has a background studying past climate and environmental change recorded by peatlands, lakes, and aeolian sediments. He is an expert in phytoliths (micro silica particles that formed in plants) but also using cutting-edge geochemistry approaches. Nannan joined the PCARB project in 2023. He is collecting and analysing peat cores extensively in Ireland to investigate the past climate influence on the carbon accumulation rates of Irish blanket bogs. Prior to that he worked at Xiamen University (2020-2023) as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, with a Ph.D. in Physical Geography (2020) and a BA in Geography (2014) at the Northeast Normal University, China.
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Email: Nannan.Li@mu.ie
PhD student
Cathal Ryan
Cathal completed his MSc in Geology at Lund University, Sweden. There he investigated past palaeoclimatic shifts during the late Quaternary. During his thesis, a late Quaternary loess-palaeosol sequence was investigated in North-eastern Serbia. The age was assessed using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) on quartz grains. To examine the past climatic signal, proxies such as magnetic susceptibility and mass accumulation rates (MAR) were utilized. Cathal has also completed studies at The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) where he investigated the High Arctic climate and glacially active landscape. Currently, Cathal has commenced his PhD at Maynooth University, investigating the past climate influence on the carbon accumulation rates of Irish blanket bogs.
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Email: CATHAL.RYAN.2024@mumail.ie