Professor Jeff Blackford

Vice-Principal (Arts and Social Sciences)

Executive, Academic and Corporate Governance

Jeff Blackford

Contact

Email

[email protected]

Phone

+44 (0)1382 386780

Biography

My leadership role is Faculty Vice-Principal of a multidisciplinary Faculty comprising previous Schools, with the aim of improving all-round academic performance in the context of a challenging financial model.  The role includes responsibility for finances, staffing, research and scholarship, and education portfolio of the Faculty.  I am also a member of the University Executive Group (UEG) with overall shared management responsibility for the University.   Previously I was Dean of the School of Humanities Social Sciences and Law at Dundee, and before that Dean for Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, at the University of Liverpool. 

Research

My research background is in physical geography, specifically palaeoecology, using preserved pollen, spores, plant remains and amoebae to reconstruct past environments. This has been primarily from peat deposits but also from lake and other sediment types.   The reconstructions are then used to understand climate changes, human impacts and ecological processes on long-term timescales, especially through the Holocene period of the last 10,000 years.   This work focusses on understanding the relationship between peat ecology, peat growth and climate.  I have also worked on the archaeological applications of palaeoecology, including detecting the presence of the first farmers in NW Europe, and have also applied these methods to examine the impacts of prehistoric volcanic eruptions in Europe and North America. 

Stories