Welcoming Dr Julie Durcan to Hertford

22 July 2026

We’re delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Julie Durcan as our new Tutorial Fellow in Geography.

Julie was awarded her PhD from Aberystwyth University in 2013. Her research focused on the luminescence dating of river systems in Pakistan and relating changing fluvial activity to the collapse of the Indus civilisation. Since then, Julie has been a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Geography and the Environment (2013–14; 2020–present) and a Supernumerary Teaching Fellow at St John’s College (2015–19).

Julie’s current research interests include palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in low latitude regions, reconstructing socio-environmental relationships in the late Quaternary period, and the development and application of the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating technique.

Her current and recent projects include:

• Reconstructing palaeoenvironmental and palaeohydrological changes using luminescence dating as a chronometer, working on projects in India, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Australia, and Namibia.
• Exploring the impact of palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental change on the Bronze Age Indus Civilisation in India and Pakistan.
• Investigation of the kinetic parameters of quartz luminescence signals.
• Refining and improving the quantification of empirically derived and modelled environmental dose rates in trapped charge dating contexts.

Welcome to Hertford, Julie!