Emily graduated from the University of St Andrews with a first class degree in Environmental Science (BSc) where she discovered her passion for climatology, and more specifically, climate proxies. Following graduation she had the opportunity to work as a tree ring laboratory technician for a project investigating the increasing frequency of droughts in South America.  This experience contributed to her being awarded a Carnegie PhD Scholarship to study here at St Andrews under the supervision of Dr Rob Wilson. 

The primary focus of Emily’s research is to use tree-ring records as a proxy of climate in order to develop a 1000+ year long summer temperature reconstruction from the Southern Yukon in Canada. Currently, only 3 records from the high latitude boreal forest go back this far, which impedes our ability to fully understand processes that have driven climate in the pre-industrial era. Emily hopes that by sampling preserved tree stems from within the region, incorporating existing tree-ring data, and utilising developing methods, that she can fill this spatial gap and provide vital climate information and place modern warming in the context of past climate variations.