Dr Savannah Worne

PhD Geography (University of Nottingham)

Pronouns: She/her
  • Doctoral Prize Fellow
ORCiD Google Scholar

Academic Career

  • 2023-present: Doctoral Prize Fellow, Department of Geography and Environment, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Loughborough University
  • January - May 2023: Teaching Associate in Physical Geography, School of Geography, University of Nottingham 
  • March 2022 - January 2023: Lecturer in Ecology and Environmental Science, School of Animal Rural and Environmental Sciences, Nottingham Trent University
  • October 2021 - March 2022: Stable Isotope Researcher, British Geological Survey
  • March 2019 - October 2021: Consultant Aquatic Ecologist, AECOM
  • October 2015 - July 202: PhD Geography, School of Geography, University of Nottingham

Professional Responsibilities

  • 2023-present: ED&I committee member of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland
  • 2023-present: Hourly Paid Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University
  • 2022-present: Honorary Research Associate, British Geological Survey
  • 2022-present: co-opted committee member of the Geochemistry Group, a special interest group of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Geological Society of London
  • 2022-present: Fellow of Higher Education Academy
  • 2021-present: Chair of the Silicofossil Group, a special interest group of The Micropalaeontological Society
  • 2019-2021: Associate of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management 
  • Journal peer reviewer: Quaternary Science Reviews, Climates of the Past, Palaeoceanography and Paleoclimatology, Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.

 

Savannah is a Doctoral Prize Fellow, whose research interests range across aquatic environmental geoscience, including algal productivity and nutrient cycling, aquatic pollution, palaeoceanography and climate change reconstruction.

Savannah’s fellowship project will improve our understanding of the impacts of waste water on standing water bodies, with particular focus on nutrient cycling and harmful algal blooms. Using a combination of water and sediment geochemistry, palaeoecology and aquatic ecology, she will use a holistic approach to assess ecosystem health and identify the vulnerabilities of these systems to future climate change and urban development. This research will primarily take place at Rutland Water, where Savannah will be working alongside the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust and Anglian Water, to better understand exactly how sewage effluent is affecting the nature reserve, in particular the aquatic environment and the organisms that live within it.

Savannah also has significant expertise in the application of diatom taxonomy and stable isotopes for palaeoclimatology and oceanography applications, developed through her PhD research at the University of Nottingham. Her thesis research investigated the role of sea ice, nutrient cycling and ocean circulation in the subarctic Pacific Ocean, on global carbon cycling and the biological pump over the last 1 million years. She maintains her palaeoceanographic research through her positions as an Honorary Research Associate at the British Geological Survey, and as Chair of the Silicofossil Group, of The Micropaleontological Society.

PhD Mentoring

  • Matthew Sutton (University of Oxford). Thesis title: Pelagic marine ecosystem response to Pleistocene climate change

 

Key Publications

  • Worne, S., Swann, G. E. A., Kender, S., Lacey, J. And Leng, M. J. (2022). Silicic Acid Cycling in the Bering Sea during the Mid Pleistocene Transition. Paleoceanogr. Paleoclimatol. 37, e2021PA004284.
  • Worne, S., Lacey, J., Barr, C., Schulz., C. and Leng M. J. (2021). Assessment of bias in carbon isotope composition of organic leaf matter due to pre-analysis milling methods. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 2021;e9134.
  • Worne, S., Stroynowski, Z., Kender, S., and Swann, G. E. A. (2021). Sea-ice Response to Climate Change in the Bering Sea during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. Quat. Sci. Rev. 259, 106918 
  • Worne, S., Kender, S., Swann, G. E. A., Leng, M. J. and Ravelo, A. C. (2020). Reduced upwelling of nutrient and carbon-rich water in the subarctic Pacific during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. Palaeogeogr., Palaeocl., 555.
  • Worne, S., Kender, S., Swann, G. E. A., Leng, M. J., & Ravelo, A. C. (2019). Coupled climate and subarctic Pacific nutrient upwelling over the last 850, 000 years. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 522, 87–97.
  • Kender, S., Ravelo, A. C., Worne, S., Swann, G. E. A., Leng, M. J., Asahi, H., …Hall, I. R. (2018). Closure of the Bering Strait caused Mid-Pleistocene Transition cooling. Nat. Commun., 9(5386).
  • Swann, G.E.A., Kendrick, C.P., Dickson, A.J. and Worne, S. (2018). Late Pliocene marine pCO2 reconstructions from the Subarctic Pacific Ocean. Paleoceanogr. Paleoclimatol., 33, 457-469.
  • Fenton, I., Baranowski, U... Worne, S., et al., (2018). Factors affecting consistency and accuracy in identifying modern macroperforate planktonic foraminifera. J Micropalaeontol, 37(2): 431-443.