All change please

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September is nearly over, the trees and weather have decided to get autumn underway, and campus is again buzzing as thousands of new and returning students arrive for the start of a new term. It seems like an appropriate time to reflect on a summer of changes here in the TPRG.

The first change, and possibly the biggest, was Macarena leaving us for pastures new at Earthwatch in Oxford. Since starting her post-doctoral research post in 2014, Maca had been a popular and integral part of many areas in SAGES (the School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Sciences) – to say nothing of her roles in the TPRG, managing the lab and running the blog. Small wonder, then, that so many people came to her farewell celebration!

The perceptive observer may have identified tiny, ever-so-subtle hints about Maca’s research interests at the party. These cryptic clues included Richard’s brilliant pollen-decorated cupcakes (which, between admiring for their looks and for their taste, we tried to identify), a pair of beautiful pollen-design earrings (thank you to Kimberley at Ontogenie for sorting out our order so quickly), and a beaker mug designed to ease the transition from handling HF to tea.

However, the arrival of two new PhD students at the beginning of September has meant that Maca’s lab bench is still being put to good use. James will be researching the long-term dynamics of different forest types and their ecotones in the Bolivian Amazon, supervised by Frank, Shovonlal Roy and Stuart Black. Josie’s project aims to investigate the sustainability of late-Holocene agriculture in the Peruvian Andes, and how it has been affected by humans and past climate change. She’s based in Archaeology, and supervised by Nick Branch and José Iriarte at the University of Exeter. You can read more about them and their work on our ‘who we are’ page.

This page is one of several that’s had a revamp over the past few weeks. Our publications page now has links to open access versions of all our research papers since the start of 2016, and you can see some examples of their impact in the press in the ‘media coverage and outreach’ section. We hope you find the updated site useful and interesting – if you have any thoughts or queries about any of it, please get in touch using the contact form, or leave a comment on a post. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Oli and the TPRG team

Frank, James, Oli, Heather, Richard, and Josie

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