Rachael Rhodes

Dr Rachael Rhodes

MGeol PhD

  • Position Governing Body Fellows
  • School Physical Sciences
  • Department Earth Sciences
  • Department link Earth Sciences

Rachael is a Lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences and specialises in researching past climates using polar ice cores.

Rachael Rhodes

Rachael completed her doctoral degree at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, with a focus on trace element geochemistry of coastal Antarctic ice cores. Rachael then moved to Oregon State University, USA for postdoctoral research developing ultra-high resolution records of atmospheric methane variability in the past. A Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship at University of Cambridge brought Rachael back to the UK in 2015. She was subsequently awarded her first academic position at Northumbria University.

In 2019, Rachael returned to Cambridge as a University Lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences and now teaches at all levels of the Earth Sciences course within the Natural Sciences Tripos. She particularly enjoys introducing students to the curiosity-driven nature of geological fieldwork.

Rachael is a member of the European Geosciences Union, American Geophysical Society and collaborates with many international colleagues through Past Global Changes (PAGES) working groups. Thanks to a secondment at the journal Nature Geoscience in 2018, Rachael is now an Editorial Board Member at Communications Earth and Environment.

Rachael uses polar ice cores to reconstruct past changes in the Earth’s climate and biogeochemical cycles, with the goal that such palaeo-constraints may improve predictions of future climate change in our warming world. Her work combines geochemical analysis of ice and the ancient air bubbles trapped inside with numerical modelling. Current interests include the drivers of multi-decadal scale methane variability and the development of chemical tracers of past sea ice conditions.

Rachael is collaborating on a number of other projects, including one that aims to reconstruct the atmospheric history of carbon monoxide and another that is using fully-coupled global climate models to examine the different drivers of abrupt methane increase during the last ice age. Looking ahead, Rachael is excited to be involved in the upcoming Antarctic deep drilling project EPICA Oldest Ice and the associated Marie Curie Innovative Training Network DEEPICE, which aim to retrieve ice older than 1.4 million years.

What's on

Inger Mewburn

Kicking the can down the road: How to create research impact in seven (not so easy) steps

06/06/2023 at 17.30

We hear terms like ‘research impact’ and ‘engagement’ all the time, but what does ‘impact’ and ‘engagement’ actually look like in practice?

selection of books written by Professor Inger Mewburn

Productivity workshops for researchers with Prof. Inger Mewburn aka The Thesis Whisperer

10/06/2023 at 10.00

Join Professor Inger Mewburn, also known online as the Thesis Whisperer, for one or both workshops to help increase your productivity: Getting sh!t done and Building a second brain (for writing)

'You' by Gavin Fry

Art Exhibition: 'Things Put Differently'

10/06/2023 at 10.00

Visit Wolfson's latest exhibition 'Things Put Differently' featuring Gavin Fry and works by Anthony Green and Mary Cozens-Walker.

Photo of artist Gurpran Rau holding a piece of her artwork

Art Exhibition: 'Patterns of Renewal'

10/06/2023 at 10.00

We're delighted to be the first to display Gurpran Rau's latest exhibition 'Patterns of Renewal', featuring a series of paintings created during lockdown inspired by her walks in the woods of Cambridgeshire.

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