Dr Julie Durcan
Tutorial Fellow in Geography
University Associate Professorship in Physical Geography
Julie is a geomorphologist and geochronologist interested in how landscapes evolve over long-term timescales, and how changing climatic and environmental conditions interacted with past human societies. Luminescence dating is central to her research, which ranges from methodological developments in geochronology to applications in geomorphology, palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and geoarchaeology. Her current projects span the Indus Basin, the Arabian Peninsula and southern Africa.
Julie joined Hertford as Tutorial Fellow in Geography and the University as Associate Professor of Physical Geography in 2026. In the School of Geography and the Environment, she is developing the scientific programme of the Oxford Luminescence Dating Laboratory, leads the Landscape Dynamics research cluster, and is an Associate Editor of the journal Geochronology.
At Hertford, Julie teaches Physical Geography across the undergraduate Geography degree. Her teaching interests include geomorphology, Quaternary environmental change, geochronology and Earth system processes, and she also leads the School of Geography and the Environment’s Final Honours School option The Quaternary Period: Natural and Human Systems.
Julie completed her PhD at Aberystwyth University in 2013 and subsequently held research and teaching positions within the School of Geography and the Environment and at St John’s and Brasenose Colleges.
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Research interests
Julie’s research focuses on three interconnected areas:
1. Landscape evolution and environmental change. Understanding how landscapes respond to climatic and environmental change, from individual events to millennial-scale changes during the Quaternary. Her current work in the Indus Basin, Arabian Peninsula and Namib examines fluvial and aeolian landscape evolution, landscape stability and reactivation, and geomorphic responses to environmental forcing.
2. Human-environment interactions. Using geomorphological and geochronological evidence to investigate how past societies interacted with changing landscapes. A longstanding focus is the Indus Basin, where Julie’s research explores relationships between river systems, environmental change and past settlement.
3. Luminescence geochronology. Developing and applying optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, with particular interests in quartz luminescence characteristics, single grain characterisation, and environmental dose rate determination.
Julie developed DRAC (Dose Rate and Age Calculator) for trapped-charge dating and contributes to the R Luminescence package.
She welcomes enquiries from prospective graduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in landscape evolution, dryland geomorphology, Quaternary environmental change, geoarchaeology and luminescence geochronology.
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Publications
For further publications, visit Dr Julie Durcan | School of Geography and the Environment.