Professional summary

Research Interests

Claire currently works in the Land Use Group at Lancaster, working as a geospatial information scientist.  Additionally, she supports the Data Stewardship Team, assisting the Land Use, Lake Ecosystems and Environmental Data groups, improving data management practices across UKCEH, and running the Environmental Information Data Centre. 

At UKCEH Lancaster, Claire leads the electronic field data capture, management and maintenance of spatial and non-spatial data across several large-scale long-term monitoring projects including the GB Countryside Survey, the Northern Ireland Countryside Survey, the Welsh Environment & Rural Affairs Monitoring and Modelling Programme(ERAMMP) and the 'Bunce' Woodland Survey. She has 20 years’ worth of experience with the soils, habitat mapping and vegetation recording components within these surveys.

Claire also has an interest in UKCEH’s archive material and data rescue, particularly in relation to UKCEH long-term land use surveys and the Moor House - Upper Teesdale NNR archive. 

Claire was heavily involved in the production of UKCEH's remotely sensed UK products, Land Cover Map 2007 and 2015 and was previously employed in the Soil Ecology Section at Lancaster/Merlewood until 2006. This followed the completion of an MSc in GIS at Edinburgh University in 2003.
During 2002-03, she was involved with fieldwork, fieldwork coordination and data analysis at CEH Merlewood, in two large scale ecological research projects; the Farm-Scale Evaluations of GM crops and Countryside Survey 2000, after graduating from St Andrews University.

Brief CV

  • 2022- : Senior geospatial information scientist, Land Use Group, member of Data Stewardship Team, UKCEH, Lancaster
  • 2017-2022: Land Use Group data manager and Environmental Informatics Liaison, CEH, Lancaster
  • 2006-2017: Land Use Group data manager and Environmental Informatics Liaison, Parr Section, CEH, Lancaster
  • 2003-2006: Scientific Officer, Soil Ecology Group, CEH at Lancaster
  • 2002-2003: MSc Geographical Information Systems, University of Edinburgh. Thesis: "Combating edge effects in landscape pattern analysis: An investigation using Countryside Survey 2000 data"
  • 2001-2002: Casual Scientific Officer, Land Use Section, CEH at Merlewood
  • 1997-2001: MA (Hons 2:i) Geography, University of St Andrews

Blog Articles

Key Words identifying areas of Specialist Expertise
Database management Field studies Soil invertebrate identification Soil analysis
Geographical Information Systems Remote sensing Biological recording Land use change       
 

Spatial analysis 

 Scientific information management Data rescue Environmental history
Habitat mapping
 		 Database documentation Archiving of scientific data Environmental informatics

 

Qualifications

  • 2021: PhD, 'Gaining new knowledge from historic data: an approach to ecological data rescue, with special reference to UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) long-term land use monitoring data sets',  University of Edinburgh
  • 2006: University Certificate in Biological Recording (Birmingham University)
  • 2002-2003: MSc Geographical Information Systems, University of Edinburgh
  • 1997-2001: MA (Hons 2:i) Geography, University of St Andrews
Link to publications in NORA

Publications