González Sampériz, Penélope

Biography

My multidisciplinary formation in both Geography and History has been essential to focus my research lines. Thus, I have always been interested in the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, vegetation dynamic and past climate changes, using Palynology as main method. Then, my work line is mainly focused to study different types of Quaternary records (from the Late Pleistocene and Holocene) in the Iberian Peninsula, aiming a realistic approximation to vegetation changes and their interaction with climatic and / or anthropogenic variations, always in a multiproxy context.

Research Interest

One of the main topics of my research is the study of human-climate interactions in the past, taking into account the influence of abrupt climate changes in patterns of human occupation and migrations, including extinctions and cultural collapses. I am developing my research to detect abrupt changes in the vegetation cover as a response to significant variations in the controlling factors. Understanding the forcings of vegetation changes and their influence in human societies during the past millennia and centuries, will serve to better model and predict the effects of the current climatic change in our environment.