Staff profiles

Read about the latest activity of our staff. You can also browse our full staff directory.

• Dr Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries
• Professor Marc Macias-Fauria
• Dr Rebecca Dell
• Professor Sarah Hall
• Professor Rachael Garrett
• Professor Mike Hulme
• Dr Francesco Muschitiello
• Dr Maan Barua
• Dr Richard Powell
• Dr Charlotte Lemanski

Dr Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries

Dr Max Van Wyk de Vries joined the Department in January 2024 as an Assistant Professor in Natural Hazards

Hello everyone! My name is Max, and I have just started as an Assistant Professor in Natural Hazards – a joint position between Geography and Earth Sciences.

The first question you might be asking is – what counts a natural hazard? This is actually an interesting problem: one of the topics I work on is understanding what hazards (volcanoes, landslides, floods, etc) are still ‘natural’ given the profound human impacts on the Earth System, and how they might change in coming decades. I work broadly on understanding the interactions between different hazards (‘multihazard’), in particular on volcano-ice interactions, landslides, and other cryospheric hazards. I am setting up a new research group, the Cambridge Complex and Multihazard research group (CoMHaz), to build a community working on these topics.

Professor Marc Macias-Fauria

Professor Marc Macias-Fauria joined the Department in January 2024 as the new 2001 Professor of Physical Geography

I am very excited to join the University of Cambridge from January 2024 as the new 2001 Professor of Physical Geography.

My research focuses on the study of the interactions between biological systems and the physical environment they inhabit, experience, and modify, with an emphasis on environmental change in cold ecosystems (both in the Arctic and cold ecosystems globally), and across a wide range of spatiotemporal scales. This involves interdisciplinary approaches that encompass the fields of ecology, plant sciences, hydrology, climatology, and the Earth sciences, within an Earth System’s based, solutions-oriented approach.

I hold degrees from the Universities of Barcelona (BSc), Calgary (MSc), and Helsinki (PhD). To join the Department of Geography and the Scott Polar Research Institute, I moved from the School of Geography & the Environment (University of Oxford), where I was Professor of Biogeosciences.

Dr Rebecca Dell

Dr Becky Dell joined the Department in October 2023 as an Assistant Professor in Glaciology

Hi All, my name is Becky and I am the department’s new Assistant Professor in Glaciology.

My research interests focus on the surface meltwater systems found on Antarctic ice shelves, and more broadly, the stability of Antarctic ice shelves in relation to local and regional scale climate variability. When I am in Cambridge, most of my work is done at the computer through remote sensing and machine learning methodologies, however I have also had the pleasure of going to Antarctica (and seeing lots of penguins) twice!

Prior to arriving in Cambridge I spent time studying at both Durham and Newcastle Universities in the North-East of England. Outside of work I enjoy coffee, rowing, and many a hiking trip!

Professor Sarah Hall

Prof Sarah Hall joined the Department in October 2023 as the new 1931 Professor of Geography

I’m delighted to have (re)joined the Department as the 1931 Professor of Geography. I’m also an alumnus having graduated in Geography in 1999. Since then I completed my PhD in Bristol and spent the vast majority of my career at the University of Nottingham.

I’m a public economic geographer. My work focuses on the uneven impacts of profound economic change including Brexit, the changing economic position of China internationally and the rise of finance-led capitalism. The majority of my work is focused on the UK and its relations with Europe, Northern America and China.

I’m currently Deputy Director of the thinktank ‘UK in a Changing Europe’ and my research is currently focused on these activities. Through this, I’ve been lucky enough to serve as a Specialist Advisor in the House of Lords on their inquiry into the impact of Brexit on UK financial services and currently co-host their podcast ‘UKICE (I Tell)’ which has recently featured the research of prominent geographers.

My current work is focused on local economic responses in the UK to macroeconomic change including Brexit but also the higher interest rate environment we are currently experiencing. In particular, I’m working in conjunction with the Greater London Authority to examine the impacts of Brexit on London’s economy. I’d love to hear from alumni who might have similar interests. Outside of work I’m kept busy with three children and three kittens!

Professor Rachael Garrett

Prof Rachael Garrett joined the Department in October 2022 as the new Moran Professor of Conservation and Development.

As long as I can remember I knew I wanted to work in the area of conservation. My many trips into the forests in Pennsylvania with my mother, the constant stories she read to me about Native Americans’ relationships with the environment, and the stream of injured wild animals that we rehabilitated and set free set the stage well for such a career.

My specific interest in tropical forest regions emerged from a field ecology trip to Costa Rica in high school. We saw dense understories, bright frogs, and mischievous monkeys. But we also visited rural forest communities and saw blighted banana plantations and degraded hillside cattle pastures where forests once stood. Despite the lost habitat and carbon emissions, these systems were also failing the very people who had cleared the forest, providing little food or money. Yet, just nearby, the indigenous Bribri tribe was using their rich ethnobotanical knowledge to sustainably utilize non-timber forest products. One system in balance, one far from it. The latter were the ones who had been able to resist United Fruit’s land advances.

So, when I first entered University in the United States in 2000, I already had certain questions that have stayed with me my whole life: Why do different communities make such different land use choices? Why are people so often stuck in routines that neither benefit themselves or the ecosystems in which they are embedded? How can we change these behaviors? Geography was the department at Boston University that could offer me the answers to some of my questions through its degree in Environmental Analysis and Policy. I later picked up a second major in History with a focus on Asia and Africa due to my fascination with the cultural, economic, and political underpinnings of modern economies.

My passions haven’t changed much over the past twenty years despite major shifts in the global pressures affecting tropical forest regions. My research focuses on understanding the: i) causes of land changes and their social and ecological impacts, ii) opportunities and challenges to scaling up more sustainable land use practices, and iii) the effectiveness and equity of conservation policies. I always try to take a long view and contextualize how modern events are embedded in deeper historical and cultural processes. I focus on behaviour, but with an eye to the broader structural factors that shape these behaviours.

I am therefore thrilled to have the opportunity to take up the Moran Professorship in the Department of Geography and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative to continue pursuing my passions at the intersection of conservation and development in such a rich interdisciplinary community. I am delighted to spend the coming years working alongside some of the world’s best critical geographers, political economists and ecologists, historians, and conservation biologists whose work all offers answers to the questions that motivate me from different viewpoints. My move to Cambridge with my husband, two kids, and dog, comes after spending three years in Switzerland as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy at ETH Zürich. Prior to joining ETH Zürich, I was an Assistant Professor at Boston University and spent time at Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia University.

Professor Mike Hulme

Professor Mike Hulme, who joined the Department in Michaelmas 2017, tells us about his work around climate change and culture, and how his childhood love of cricket inspired his interest in the relationships between climate and society.

I was born in London in 1960, and am a lifelong cricket fan. As a boy this inspired my twin interests in weather and statistics. The similarities between cricket scorecards and meteorological registers is uncanny (see the adjacent images). The wider story that this inspired in me was a deep fascination with the relationships between climates and cultures, between weather and society. I have pursued this interest throughout my career, which has pursued an ever deeper understanding — using scientific, social scientific and humanities insights — of both the physical and imaginative force of climate change. I am equally at home thinking through these different meta-disciplines.

My work explores the idea of climate and its changes and I do this using historical, cultural and scientific analyses. I seek to illuminate the numerous ways in which climate change is deployed in public and political discourse. I believe it is important to understand and describe the varied ideological, political and ethical work that the idea of climate change is currently performing across many different social worlds.

For my undergraduate degree, I choose to study geography at university in Durham and for my undergraduate dissertation constructed a UK winter weather index. This was later picked up by Scottish Local Authorities and christened ‘the Hulme Index’, which they found useful for their winter road maintenance programme. Although I gained a BSc from Durham, my interests in geography spanned both the human and the physical and this ‘holding together’ of different ways of interpreting the world remains, for me, the essential hallmark of the geographer.

I started working in the University of Cambridge in September 2017, having previously worked at Kings College London, the University of East Anglia, the University of Zimbabwe and the University of Salford. The University has outstanding people – academics and students alike – and wonderful resources. The organisation of the University creates great flexibility and space for experimentation, collaboration and innovation, essential elements necessary for universities to make valued contributions to public life. It is a great privilege to teach and mentor the students who are attracted to this Department.

To current Geography students, I would say don’t limit yourself to the familiar, whether these be people, places, ideas or courses – and develop a historical sensibility for whatever geographical subject matter you are studying. As geographers the world is your field site and, whether undergraduate or graduate, you should grasp the opportunities studying at a university like Cambridge brings with it.

Dr Francesco Muschitiello

Dr Francesco Muschitiello, Lecturer in Physical Geography, tells us how he came from conserving fine art to his current climate science research, working to improve our ability to predict climate change.

Ever since I can remember I have always been fascinated by the Earth System and by all the natural processes at play on our planet. I was particularly curious about the interplay between atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and biosphere, and how all the chaotic physical processes around us still make life sustainable on our planet.

However, I came to study Climate Science, and Physical Geography, in kind of a roundabout way. I have a BSc in Chemistry for Conservation and Restoration of Fine Art- despite my passion for science, I didn’t want to give up on humanities. It took me four long years before I realized I wanted to pursue an academic career in Earth and Natural Sciences. That’s when I started an MSc in Geology at the University of Perugia.

I went on to study for an MSc in Sweden, where I was given the opportunity to design paleo-climatic research, involving fieldwork, and laboratory work, among other activities. By the time I wrapped up my thesis I was completely captivated and mesmerized by Climate Science and its strong interdisciplinarity and in less than no time I joined a PhD programme in Physical Geography. Don’t enter a PhD programme if you want to have a social life, but if you really have to, apply for Physical Geography: it will change your life for the better!

My current research focuses on reconstructing and understanding abrupt climate changes of the past to improve our ability to predict future climate change. I use a variety of geochemical proxies in sedimentary archives, such as microfossils and radiocarbon measurements. These proxies provide powerful tools to reconstruct past changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation, as well as changes in the global carbon cycle. I also employ a wide range of numerical and statistical tools to analyse large climate data sets and proxy-based climate records, and to assess the performance of climate model simulations against reconstructions.

I’ve worked in Cambridge since 2018, and like its dual nature, deeply rooted in the past, with its history and colleges, but with an eye to the future, strongly committed to educating youth and preparing future generations … but I also like the pubs … and fish and chips.

Dr Maan Barua

Having grown up witnessing the interplay between wildlife and politics in India, Dr Maan Barua is passionate about understanding relations between nature and society. His latest project explores the social impacts of ecologies in urban areas, from foxes in London to cattle in New Delhi.

My interest in nature-society relations stems from growing up in the countryside in Assam, north-eastern India. There I was witness to a constant traffic between nature and culture, wildlife and politics, ecology and the economy. I wanted to grasp some of these complexities, and this led me to Geography.

In Assam, I initially studied for an undergraduate degree in zoology and chemistry, aiming to become an ecologist. However, I realised that geography provided the best opportunities for researching across the nature/politics divide; the topic wasn’t a ready fit with either the biological or social sciences. The relations between nature and society are one of geography’s most durable concerns. The discipline- at both its “physical” and “human” ends- grapples, one might say extremely productively, with such tensions.

I read for an MSc and DPhil in Geography at the University of Oxford, where I later became a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow. My research focused on the relations between nature and capitalism, looking at what some have called “lively capital”: value derived from life, which moves through spheres that cut across the nature/society divide. Subjects include: lions and the political economies of ecotourism; bees and the ecologies of agriculture; and pandas and affective labour in zoos.

For my latest project, I am looking at how animals inhabit the city, be it foxes in London, cattle in New Delhi or stray dogs in Guwahati. I focus on these three cities, examining ecologies that are cultivated (e.g. livestock, poultry), feral (stray dogs) and wild (macaques, avian scavengers). I look at the impact these ecologies have upon everyday lives, urban conflicts, and ultimately, in defining what urbanicity is. Urbanization is inherently about the urbanization of nature, but the latter often slips the leash of critical inquiry. This work speaks to concerns at the forefront of contemporary urban studies, and addresses key issues around making cities more just for those in urban poverty.

I’ve worked in Cambridge since January, and particularly like the University structure and the opportunities it offers for cross-disciplinary conversations. I feel privileged to be working in a Department conducting cutting-edge research around the politics between the living and material world – the perfect setting to explore urban ecologies.

Dr Richard Powell

Human geographer Dr Richard Powell has been interested in the peoples and cultures of the Arctic, and discipline formation, since his undergraduate days. His new, interdisciplinary project examines how colonial centres viewed Arctic areas.

I first became interested in the people and geographies of the Arctic during my undergraduate degree, which I took at Oxford. I have been privileged to work on different aspects of Arctic Cultures ever since, including during my MA at British Columbia and my PhD at Cambridge. Each of my degrees are in Geography, and though I am a cultural, historical and political geographer, I am interested broadly in the discipline.

The opportunity to work at the Scott Polar Research Institute, which is the foremost institution in the world in my field, brought me back to Cambridge in 2017. I always liked the Geography Department, but since moving back I have been delighted by the passion that colleagues share for geography in all its guises – for their brilliant undergraduate and graduate students, for their outstanding research and for their responsibilities to the world. This makes both Geography and SPRI inspiring places to work.

My new research project develops understanding of the consequences of forms of colonial representation for debates about the Circumpolar Arctic today. Named ARCTIC CULT, or ‘Arctic Cultures: Sites of Collection in the Formation of the European and American Northlands’, this ERC-funded project will last for 5 years, and includes myself, four Post-Doctoral Researchers and a Project Assistant. We are engaging with museums, archives, libraries and repositories across Europe and North America, as well as in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. The project is interdisciplinary, involving historical and archival work, textual and discourse analysis, and consultation of material objects and museum collections. I am really excited to have the opportunity to get to grips with questions surrounding Arctic Cultures over a large, extended team project.

To current students, I would remind you that Geography is a fantastic subject and don’t ever let anyone try and persuade you otherwise. It is a subject that leads to interesting careers. As teachers, we are here to help you in this and are always available to talk and provide advice. But I would say work hard and take advantage of all the excellent opportunities that are on offer here. More importantly, Geography makes good global citizens so try to remember that, especially when you leave Cambridge. And, obviously, please take the Arctic Paper!

Dr Charlotte Lemanski

Human geographer Dr Charlotte Lemanski works primarily in South Africa, conducting research with urban dwellers, policymakers, NGOs and private-sector decisions makers about improved access to housing and infrastructure in the context of citizenship and governance.

I came to geography relatively late in my career, having stopped studying the subject at school aged 14 (because you could not study both history and geography at my comprehensive, and I found the former more intellectually engaging!), and only re-discovered geography for my doctoral studies at the University of Oxford over a decade later. While my desire to understand and challenge inequalities and injustices was forming throughout this period; initially inspired by growing up on the outskirts of East London in a family where I was the first to graduate from university, and later shaped by my BA degree in Politics at Durham and MSc in Development Management at the LSE; I had not yet realised that these were inherently geographical interests.

After graduating from Durham, I was offered a graduate trainee position by the UK international development NGO, Tearfund, which required me to sign a contract for an 18 month overseas placement before knowing where I would be sent. While other graduate trainees were largely sent to distant rural locations, my placement was a residential facility for former street-children in Cape Town, South Africa. Little did I realise, when signing that contract aged 20, that this placement would be the single most defining decision of my career.

Arriving in Cape Town only five years after the demise of apartheid, I was shocked by the ongoing impact of apartheid’s spatial geography on everyday life in the city. Physical spaces were labelled according to race (official classifications had lifted, but little had changed in practice, and informally areas were still known by race), and huge inequalities remained dictated by race and location. Initially I lived in a low-income Coloured area close to the city centre, where homelessness and drug abuse were rife, and where as a white woman I was noticed wherever I went. From here, in just 15 minutes, I could travel down the road to a luxurious shopping centre, surrounded by other pale faces, sipping a latte in a venue that easily could be in Dubai, London or Sydney. I never adjusted to the cognitive dissonance of moving between these parallel worlds, where the visibility and proximity of inequality was so extreme. When my placement ended, I was hooked on South Africa, and wanted to play a role in challenging and overcoming such systemic physical, socio-economic and political injustices. I suppose that those 18 months in Cape Town represent the period when I became a geographer at heart, although the formal training came later.

I continue to work primarily in South Africa, conducting research with urban dwellers, policymakers, NGOs and private-sector decisions makers about improved access to housing and infrastructure in the context of citizenship and governance. I recently completed a project exploring innovative technologies for energy interventions in low-income housing (e.g. solar water heaters, improved insulation) which was comparative across Bangalore and Cape Town. One of the project conclusions was that the core tension in delivering and accessing innovative energy products in low-income communities is not technical, financial or cultural constraints per se, but limitations in communication and participation between stakeholders. As a follow-up, I have a small project in collaboration with a Cape Town NGO that is working with low-income communities to build their capacity in negotiating with external stakeholders to promote their energy needs and aspirations.

I love that geography provides me with the theoretical frameworks, empirical knowledge and methodological tools to explore difficult questions that cover a wide range of issues. As a geographer I am free to explore cross-cutting issues such as inequality, social justice, urban infrastructure, technology, citizenship; topics that would be silo-ed into their physical or socio-economic aspects in other disciplines.

I moved to the Department of Geography at Cambridge in October 2014, having previously worked at University College London and the University of Cape Town. I really enjoy the university-wide opportunities to work with experts from a wide range of disciplines. I am also raising a family in Cambridge – where I love that being quirky is normal, but I do miss the South African sun and mountains!