Welcome to Russell Garwood

Welcome to Dr Russell Garwood, who joins the School of Earth, Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences, and ICAL, in January 2015 as Lecturer in Earth Sciences.

Dr Russell Garwood

Russell currently holds a research fellowship in the school funded by the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He gained an MSci in geology from Imperial College London in 2007, before completing a PhD at the same institution. This was based on high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scanning, applied to improve understanding of the mode of life, relationships, and palaeobiology of early land animals. It led to a role running the CT facilities, and conducting research, at the Natural History Museum, London, before his move to Manchester.

Russell's research interests include X-ray techniques, 3D reconstruction and computational approaches in earth sciences, terrestrialisation, and the fossil record and evolutionary relationships of the arthropods — particularly arachnids and insects. Russell’s current research activities include using CT to study: fossils from ancient terrestrial ecosystems to provide a better understanding of early life on land; the origins and evolution of arachnids and insects; the fossil record of insect development; early cellular fossils that record the first 2 billion years of evolution; and the earliest animals with hard parts. He is also working on developing X-ray techniques to non-destructively map the chemistry of geological samples, and software that simulates evolution over long time periods with large population numbers.

Russell is a fellow of the Geological Society of London and the Royal Institution, a member of the Palaeontological Association, and a Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum, London. He has also recently been appointed a Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute (http://www.software.ac.uk/news/2014-12-05-chosen-fellows-2015-announced) to promote and provide training in the use of open-source software for analysing tomographic studies.

▲ Up to the top