Dr Helen Essell

Biography

Helen graduated from Murray Edwards College in 2020 with a BA in Geography. During this, she became interested in using palaeoenvironmental records to understand the nature and drivers of past environmental change, which prompted her to complete an MPhil in Holocene Climates at the University of Cambridge (2021). She further pursued these interests through a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast (2024), during which she used pollen records to reconstruct the environmental and human history of the Mourne Mountains, County Down. Helen is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at in the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, where she uses palaeoenvironmental records (i.e., pollen, NPPs and charcoal) to understand environmental and land-use histories at wetland sites in the UK, Channel Islands, Canada, Ghana and Australia; she works with conservation agencies and indigenous groups in these regions, using palaeoenvironmental records to guide their restoration activities.

Degrees

PhD Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast

MPhil Holocene Climates, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge

BA Geography, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge

Research Interests

My research uses a palaeoecological approach to explore the nature, causes and timing of past environmental change. I use fossil proxies (e.g., pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs and charcoal) preserved in sedimentary sequences to reconstruct vegetation and land-use change over preceding millennia. I am interested in using this approach to inform conservation and heritage management.

I currently work in the Conservation Palaeoecology Lab in the Department of Geography on the Integrating Past and Present Ecologies, and Traditional Knowledge for Effective Biodiversity Management into the Future (IPPET) project. This project applies palaeoecology to study changes in floristic composition and diversity, human land-use, fire, wetland hydrology, and carbon accumulation in the past. We work with land managers and indigenous groups to collaboratively develop frameworks for the use of the palaeoecological results in ongoing conservation and management efforts. This project investigates sites in the UK, Channel Islands, Canada, Ghana and Australia.