Dr. Marcus Collier (Botany)
Marcus Collier is an Associate Professor of Sustainability Science in the Discipline of Botany in the School of Natural Sciences and a Principal Investigator at the Science Foundation Ireland ADAPT Centre. He obtained his PhD from UCD in 2010 and moved to Trinity College Dublin in 2017 becoming Director of Research for the School of Natural Sciences in 2018. His research is centred on anthropogenic ecosystems with a focus on social-ecological systems, urban novel ecosystems and nature-based solutions. Working as an environmental consultant prior to entering academia, he worked with volunteers and non-governmental agencies to co-create and implement ecological restoration projects through adaptive collaborative processes.
Marcus has over 60 journal publications and he was the lead investigator of two EU-funded research consortia over 10 years: the TURAS project from 2011 to 2016, for which he received a Champions of European Research Award, followed by Connecting Nature from 2017 to 2022. In 2020, Marcus was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator grant for NovelEco, which is investigating perceptions of informed wild spaces in cities with citizen scientists.
Dr. Micha Ruhl (Geology)
Micha Ruhl is an Assistant Professor in Geology at the School of Natural Sciences. He originally graduated from Utrecht University (NL), with a BSc, MSc (2006) and PhD (2010) in Earth Sciences. He then worked for 3 years as a postdoctoral research associate and fellow at the Nordic Centre for Earth Evolution at the University of Copenhagen (DK), followed by 5 years as a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford (UK). Professor Ruhl joined Trinity College Dublin in 2018 where his research is focused on the fields of sedimentary geochemistry, palaeoclimatology and integrated stratigraphy. For his research, he studies some of the largest past climatic and environmental change events in Earth's history and their causal links to global carbon cycle perturbations and major mass extinctions. His research is both field and laboratory-based, and his projects have allowed him to conduct fieldwork worldwide, in North and South America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
Professor Ruhl's research is commonly conducted as part of large international research consortia such as through the International Continental Drilling Programme. He has authored 60 peer-reviewed publications including in internationally high-ranked journals such as Science, Science Advances, Nature Geosciences, PNAS, and Nature Comms, and his work has been extensively featured in global news outlets. He currently co-leads the UNESCO International Geoscience Programme project 739, which brings together international experts in the study of deep-time climate change. Furthermore, Professor Ruhl serves on the editorial board of two international peer-reviewed journals.
Professor Ruhl currently supervises 2 PhD students at Trinity College Dublin, where he also teaches in the Undergraduate and MSc programmes, and he serves as Director for the Undergraduate Teaching programme in Geography and Geosciences (TR062).