My central research theme is remote sensing of environmental distributions, with particular focus on spatial and temporal scales of observation, methods of land cover characterization, and application to ecological problems, specializing in forest environments.

Recently I have been investigating, for instance, peat swamp forest conservation in Malaysia, savannah monitoring in southern Africa and alien forest invasion in Chile; funded by sources such as the Natural Environment Research Council, Royal Society, Leverhulme Trust, Royal Geographical Society and Smithsonian Institution.

I am committed to converting research outcomes into tangible societal benefits, and recent examples include exploitation of the Malaysian research findings to underpin two Best Management Practice (BMP) manuals on peatland management and oil palm cultivation, published by the influential international NGO Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

And I am committed to broader science communication, including public addresses such as a Monday Night Lecture – Where’s the swamp gone for peat’s sake?! – at the Royal Geographical Society, and of course online media such as podcasts on palm oil sustainability and discussions in the Conversation.

I joined Mary Immaculate College in 2022, after 15 years as a lecturer/senior lecturer at the University of Nottingham, and 7 years in a research leadership position as Professor of Geography at Edge Hill University.

I have wide international experience as an educator, teaching variously around Ireland and the UK, and further afield, including MSc Environmental Science at Central European University in Hungary, guest lecturing to Master's students in Chile and China, and delivering postgraduate summer schools for the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing in Ethiopia and Poland.

I have contributed to the discipline via a broad range of academic service activities, currently engaged as the Editor-in-Chief for Land (Observation and Monitoring Section) and on the editorial boards for ISPRS Journal for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, and Sensors. I am a Fellow (former Ralph Brown Award winner) of the Royal Geographical Society, Member (Grants Review Panellist) of the British Society for Ecology, and Member (former Chair) of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society; and I served terms as Council Member of the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories and National Delegate (UK) to the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, also acting as ISPRS Book Series Editor for eight years.