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I am a palaeolimnologist whose research uses natural archives, especially lake sediments, to assess the spatial and temporal distributions of pollutants including fly-ash particles, trace metals, persistent organic compounds and microplastics. More recent research has highlighted the role of climate change on the remobilisation of legacy pollutants and the risk to aquatic organisms from the combined effects of toxic contaminants. Since 2018 I have been a member of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), within the Sub-commission on Quaternary Stratigraphy of the International Commission on Stratigraphy, working on a proposal to formalise the Anthropocene within the Geological Time Scale.Ìý

More about Emeritus Professor Rose

My undergraduate degree was in Chemistry with Geochemistry at the University of Leicester after which I worked with the British Antarctic Survey as a limnologist on their Signy Island base (South Orkney Islands) for over two years (1984-87). I was appointed as a Research Assistant at Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê in October 1987 and undertook a part-time PhD on the chemical characterisation and source apportionment of fly-ash particles, awarded in 1991. Subsequent post-doctoral research focussed on lake sediment records of contaminants mainly in remote regions of the world including Greenland, Svalbard, the Tibetan Plateau, Siberia, Alaska, throughout Europe and southern and central Africa.
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I was appointed Professor of Environmental Pollution and Palaeolimnology in the Department of Geography, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê in 2011 (Emeritus since August 2023) and visiting Professor in the Department of Geography, Environmental Management & Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg in 2021. I was a Director of ENSIS Ltd (the consultancy arm of the Environmental Change Research Centre located within the Department of Geography, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê) from 1994 until the company’s closure in 2018 and coordinator of the Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê Environmental Radiometric Facility (located within the Department of Geography, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê) from its start in 2005.Ìý

I have received research funding from many sources including the EU, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Leverhulme Trust, the Royal Society, Defra, the National Geographic Society, the National Lottery (Big Lottery Fund) and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin). Between 2008 and 2012, I led the Lottery-funded Open Air Laboratories (OPAL) Water Centre encouraging public participation in aquatic science. I have authored and co-authored over 200 scientific publications and over 20 book chapters.
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Publications

To view Emeritus Professor Rose's publications, please visit Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê Profiles:

Research Interests

• The spatial and temporal distributions of pollutants including fly-ash particles, heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants and microplastics using natural archives (e.g., lake and marine sediments, peat sequences, ice cores, corals) on a British, European and global scale.
• The remobilisation of contaminants from catchments, their transfer to lakes and uptake into the aquatic food web
• Reconstructing toxicity risk to aquatic biota from multiple pollutantsÌý
• The fly-ash particle record as a global marker for the Anthropocene