Dr Richard Clark-Wilson, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Richard obtained his doctorate at Royal Holloway, University of London. His key interests lie in reconstructing Quaternary palaeoenvironments and dating Quaternary sediments using Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating. His work with the Palaeodeserts team began with his MSc dissertation entitled ‘Chronologies and Palaeoenvironments of the Western Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia’ which was supervised by team members, Prof. Simon Armitage and Prof. Ian Candy at Royal Holloway. Here he applied stable isotope analysis and micromorphology to reconstruct the palaeoenvironment of two palaeolake basins within the Western Nefud desert, while also applying Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating to date the palaeolakes. His doctoral research was focused on expanding his MSc work to numerous palaeolake basins across the western Nefud Desert in order to reconstruct the palaeoenvironment for, and to develop a chronology of, humid phases in the region. Overall, his research aims to provide a better understanding of the climatic controls on hominin dispersals and occupations in the Western Nefud over the mid- to late-Pleistocene. Richard’s doctoral work was funded by the Natural Research Environment Council (NERC), UK.
