She completed both her BA and PhD in Geography in Trinity College Dublin, and also holds an MSc in Quaternary Science from the University of London. Her main research interests relate to the causes, patterns and impacts of climate and environmental change in tropical Africa. Much of her research involves using sediment-based records to reconstruct past environmental change, with a particular focus on the Albertine Rift of eastern Africa. She has extensive field experience in eastern and southern Africa, having been involved in fieldwork in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Following completion of her PhD in 2012, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a project examining the relationship between environmental/climate change and water-related vector-borne diseases in eastern Africa