Heather Plumpton joins Walker Institute

We would like to welcome Heather Plumpton to the Walker Institute. As an Interdisciplinary Research Fellow, Heather will be contributing to our growing research team.

Heather submitted her PhD thesis in the department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Reading last December. Her PhD looked at the long-term impacts of drought in the tropical forests of South America.

Following her PhD, Heather began a fellowship sponsored by British Ecological Society (BES) at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) where she researched and wrote a briefing for members of Parliament and the House of Lords on climate change and agriculture.

Heather has been a long-standing member of the Walker Community, previously taking part in our Climate Services Academy Training (CSAT) course, which involved travelling to Senegal to undertake fieldwork. In addition, together with Walker’s Dr Hannah Young, Heather recently carried out climate risk analysis for the Department for International Development (DfID) to help identify areas of development plans at risk from climate change impacts and to inform DfID’s development planning.

Heather has an environmental science background but would describe herself as an interdisciplinary ecologist, aiming to help further bridge the gap between hard science and policy