Dr Jenni Sherriff is a physical geographer specialising in Quaternary palaeoclimate and landscape evolution, with a focus on how past environmental change shaped hominin dispersals across Eurasia. Her research combines stable isotope geochemistry, sedimentology, and stratigraphic analysis to reconstruct terrestrial climate and hydrological variability during the Pleistocene.

She completed her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2015, examining environmental change and Palaeolithic dispersals in Britain. She then held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Winchester: first on the Leverhulme Trust–funded project Pleistocene Archaeology, Geochronology and Environments of the Southern Caucasus (2016–2019), which investigated climatic and geomorphological drivers of human occupation in the region; and later on the Historic England–funded project Predicting Palaeolithic Archaeology in England: A Geological Mapping Approach (2019), applying sedimentological and geomorphological mapping to assess archaeological potential in Pleistocene deposits across the British Isles. Before joining King’s College London as Lecturer in Physical Geography in 2021, she taught at in the Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Research

• Quaternary climate change and landscape evolution
• Stable isotope geochemistry of terrestrial and biogenic carbonates
• Sedimentology and stratigraphy of Pleistocene archives
• Hydroclimate variability and aridity reconstructions
• Warm climates and interglacial environments
• Human–environment interactions and hominin dispersals across Eurasia

Dr Jenni Sherriff is a physical geographer researching how Quaternary climate change shaped landscapes, ecosystems, and human history. She specialises in stable isotope geochemistry, sedimentology, and sediment geochemistry to reconstruct past temperature, rainfall, hydroclimate variability, and site formation processes. Her work places particular emphasis on past interglacials and warm periods as analogues for present and future climate change. Jenni’s research focuses on the Southern Caucasus and Britain, investigating how environmental variability influenced hominin occupation at both the crossroads of Europe and Asia and the northern edge of human range. She has extensive archaeological excavation experience and has led stratigraphic work at several key Palaeolithic sites, integrating environmental and archaeological records to better understand the relationship between past climate change, landscape evolution, and human dispersals.

Teaching

Undergraduate

• 5SSG2062 BSc Geography Tutorials
• 6SSG3070 Global Climate Change: Past, Present & Future

Postgraduate

• 7SSGN227 Researching Climate Change
• 7SSGn110 Environmental Data Analysis
• 7SSGN223 Environmental Science for Sustainability

PhD supervision

Dr Jenni Sherriff is keen to supervise PhD students interested in past climate, landscape change, and human–environment interactions, and welcomes enquiries by email from prospective applicants. Broad themes could include:

• Quaternary climate change, hydroclimate variability, and interglacial environments as analogues for future change
• Stable isotope geochemistry and carbonate archives (molluscs, soils, lake sediments)
• Sedimentology, stratigraphy, and site formation processes at Palaeolithic sites
• Landscape evolution, human dispersals, and integration of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records

Further details

See Jenni's research profile