Research Interests

Barbara is Professor and Director of LEC’s internationally-renowned Centre for Environmental Magnetism & Palaeomagnetism, Lancaster University. Barbara was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2024. Amongst other recent prizes, awards and distinctions, Barbara was the Edward Bullard Lecturer at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2021 (AGU Named Lectures are awarded to distinguished scientists with proven leadership and discoveries in their fields). She was awarded Fellowship of the AGU in 2020. In 2014, she received the Schlumberger Award (now the Neumann Medal), the most prestigious honour bestowed by the Mineralogical Society of Gt Britain & Ireland, for scientific excellence in mineralogy and its applications. For outstanding teaching, she received a Pilkington Teaching Award in 2013. From 2006 to 2012, Barbara held a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2006-2012). In 2005, she was awarded by the Institute of Physics the Chree Medal and Prize (2005) for ‘pioneering contributions to the study of magnetic signals from the geological record as a means of determining climatic changes’). Uniquely, Barbara was elected Chair of the Rock Magnetism Group, International Union of Geophysics and Geodesy, 2002 – 2006 and then re-elected for a further two years (2006 – 2008). She was Vice-president of the Quaternary Research Association, 2008 - 2010.

Barbara's major research interests are in Environmental Magnetism and Palaeomagnetism. She led the team which recently discovered the abundant presence of externally-derived magnetite, and co-associated metal-bearing air pollution nanoparticles in the human brain, identifying for the first time a possible causal role for these particles in neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer's disease. She applies magnetic methods to current environmental processes and problems, including magnetic monitoring and sourcing of particulate pollutants, tracing of modern fluvial sediment sources, and magnetic 'clean-up' of contaminated waters. In geological contexts, she uses magnetic methods to retrieve palaeoclimatic, palaeoenvironmental and dating information from the magnetic records of Quaternary terrestrial sediments (soils, loess, tills, lake sediments), deep-sea sediments, and pre-Quaternary rocks. She led the international Working Group (INQUA ‘DIRTMAP3’ and NERC-QUEST) on Dust and Climate.

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