Michelle Mckeown

Biography

Michelle is a Lecturer in Physical Geography at the University of the South Pacific. Her research focuses on increasing our understanding of past environmental change through the use of biological indicators (chironomid, midge fly) sourced from lake sediments. Chironomids present an excellent opportunity to reconstruct past climates, as well as human-environment interactions, in unique detail. The methodology has been successfully employed throughout the world to track both natural and anthropogenic variations in environmental conditions, including climate change, acidification, and heavy metal contamination of freshwaters. Michelle’s current chironomid-based projects involve reconstructing long-term temperature change over the Holocene in Ireland and Denmark, as well as assessing how twentieth and early twenty-first century climate and human impacts have manifested in a number of lakes in western Ireland. Michelle has also reconstructed long-term climate change from Irish instrumental records, and remains active in modern climate studies. Michelle aims to use her experience and expertise to facilitate the development of a more detailed understanding of environmental and climate change across the South Pacific islands.

Research Interest

Natural and anthropogenic climate change, Reconstructions from proxy records and instrumental records, Palaeoclimatology/palaeolimnology, Chironomids, Human-environment interactions on lake ecosystems