Dr Jane Boygle
Deputy Head of Department
My profile
Biography
I am Deputy Head of Department providing academic leadership and management of dedicated and passionate teams delivering teaching, research and enterprise across Natural Sciences.
I am a physical geographer specifically interested in Holocene climate change, tephrochronology and lake and catchment sediments. I have a BA(Hons) Geography degree from St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and a NERC-funded PhD from Edinburgh University. I was a Leverhulme Trust postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Physical Geography (Naturgeografiska Institutionen) at Stockholm University before becoming a lecturer at Manchester Met. I have a PGCE in Further Adult and Higher Education from Manchester Met and became a Principal Lecturer in 2014.
External examiner roles
External Examiner for BSc(Hons) Physical Geography at the University of the West of England (2015-2020)
Review Team (Chair) for the School of Geography and Archaeology NUI Galway School Review 2019
Expert reviewer for external funding bodies
Referee/reviewer - Quaternary Science Reviews, Journal of Quaternary Science, Boreas, Journal of Paleolimnology, Bioscience Education.
Membership of professional associations
Member - Quaternary Research Association
Royal Geographical Society - member of the Conference of Heads of Geography in Higher Education Institutions (CHGHEI)
Interests and expertise
My main area of interest is tephrochronology and Holocene climatic change. Layers of volcanic ash in lake, ice, soils and peat sediments can be identified and dated to provide a time framework for climatic and environmental change. Previous work concentrated on the distribution of tephra in lake and peat sediments in Sweden and Iceland.
I am also broadly interested in natural and anthropogenic landscape change, and happily supervise dissertations in this important aspect of global system change and sustainability.
Teaching
I teach the following topics: Quaternary environments, Holocene climate change, volcanoes, geomorphological and sedimentological processes, global environmental issues, academic skills, research design and techniques. In various units, I’ll help you develop your knowledge and understanding of physical geography by hands-on practical experience in laboratories and on field trips, and by outlining theoretical aspects during large and small group teaching. I’m the personal tutor of a small group of students each year and I guide them throughout their time at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Subject areas
Physical Geography
Research outputs
Past papers include:
Wastegård, S. & Boygle, J.E. (2012) Distal tephrochronology of NW Europe – the view from Sweden. Jökull 62, 73-80.
Boygle, J.E. (2004) Towards a Holocene tephrochronology for Sweden: Geochemistry and correlation with the North Atlantic tephra stratigraphy. Journal of Quaternary Science 19, 103-109.
Boygle, J.E. (1999) Variability of tephra in lake and catchment sediments, Svínavatn, Iceland. Global and Planetary Change 21, 129-149.
Boygle, J.E. (1998) A little goes a long way: The Kebister tephra in Sweden. Boreas, 27, 195-199.
Boygle, J.E. (1993) The Swedish varve chronology: A review. Progress in Physical Geography Volume 17(1), 1-19.