Fieldwork in Athens and Crete, 2023.
I am an organic geochemist specialising in palaeoclimatology. My research addresses two key themes: (1) developing new geochemical tools; (2) reconstructing Holocene and Cenozoic climate change. In addition, I have recently started to cross disciplines into speleology and archaeology with a focus on ancient civilisations and the nexus of climate, diet and water management (e.g. current work in Crete and S.E. Asia). I work closely with many colleagues at Birmingham and the international community on these research challenges.
I have a breadth of experience in fieldwork, marine expeditions, laboratory techniques as well as mentoring and developing young scientists. In recent years, I participated in major technical breakthroughs, developing 3-OH-FAs (Wang et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2021) as biomarkers for environmental reconstruction and the publishing of the first biomarker-based palaeoclimate and carbon-cycle reconstructions from stalagmites (Wang, Bendle et al., 2018, 2019) and ice-cores (e.g. Seki et al. 2015). I am likely the first organic geochemist to have published paleoclimate reconstructions from all the main palaeoclimate archives (marine & lake cores, ice-cores, speleothems). Other recent highlights include the development of the first application of modern machine-learning tools to improve estimations and the representation of uncertainty for biomarker-based proxies (Dunkley Jones, et. al., 2020), the first application of biomarker δ2H to reconstruct Holocene meltwater from Antarctica (Ashley, et al., 2020) and continuing to publish high-profile papers on Cenozoic climate evolution (Mota et al., 2023; Duncan et al., 2022; Johnson et al., 2022).
I am currently a Reader (Assoc. Prof.) in Organic Geochemistry at the University of Birmingham. I have designed and delivered numerous new undergraduate and postgraduate level courses, including field-based teaching and a residential ‘Speed-PhD’ course for PhD students. I integrate inquiry-led and skills-based learning in many aspects of my teaching. From 2013-2019 a significant portion of my time (0.4FTE) was dedicated to a major leadership role as the Director of the NERC CENTA Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP)
CONTACT ME
Email :
j.bendle[at]bham.ac.uk
Address :
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Aston Webb Building, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B15 2TT, UK
LINKS and Social Media:
Photo credits for this site: Alice Hardman. Chris Woods, Huub Zwart, Kathleen Johnson, Mick Griffiths, Kelsey Doiron, Caitlin Allen, Jessie Green.
James Bendle 