Debra Colarossi is interested in the technical development of luminescence chronometers, with a view to extending the upper age range of the technique, and ultimately applying luminescence dating to geological and archaeological sites through the entire Quaternary. Debra holds a PhD from Aberystwyth University where she investigated the fundamental principles of luminescence dating and its application to determine the driving factors of deposition and erosion, and the switch between them, by accurately dating episodes recorded in Quaternary sediments in South Africa. Following completion of her doctorate, Debra was employed as a Junior Scientist in the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, where she focused on dating Middle Stone Age archaeological sites across the African continent, and the development of novel luminescence chronometers. As a PDRA on the EQuaTe project based in Aberystwyth, Debra is investigating the thermoluminescence dating of opercula and other bio-carbonates. 

Marc Dickinson is a PDRA on the EQuaTe project, based at York.  His work focuses on developing our understanding of the way both the inorganic and organic components of enamel breakdown over geological timescales and how these patterns of degradation can be used as a tool for estimating the age of fossilised remains. During Marc's PhD he was interested in developing a method for the separation of amino acids from inorganic phosphate, as well as testing the suitability of enamel for application to building geochronologies. This work involved simulating long term degradation in a laboratory and then testing the method of age estimation against an independently dated sequence in the UK.  

Geoff Duller works on the development and application of luminescence dating methods for archaeological and geological applications. A first degree in Geography at the University of Oxford was followed by a PhD at Aberystwyth University in luminescence dating, looking at geological sites in New Zealand. This was followed by periods of time working at the Department of Physics at Adelaide University as a Royal Society funded Fellow, and then at the Department of Health Physics at Risø National Laboratory in Denmark looking at physical processes in different minerals, and developing instrumentation for novel luminescence methods. For the last 20 years he has co-directed the Aberystwyth Luminescence Research Laboratory (ALRL). Interdisciplinarity has been a feature of the research undertaken in the last decades, involving work on solid state physics, engineering design, software design, geomorphology, archaeology and space science. The theme that binds all these topics together is luminescence from minerals and its application to geochronology. Geoff Duller’s role in EQuaTe is to lead, along with Prof Helen Roberts, the thermoluminescence dating of opercula and other bio-carbonates that will be undertaken at Aberystwyth University. 

Ellie Nelson is a PhD researcher on the EQuate project, based at York. She will be working with the team to build an amino acid geochronology of Quaternary sites throughout Europe. Her research will focus on how regional temperatures impact the relevant reactions that occur during protein diagenesis. Ellie has an MSc in Climate Change Science and Policy and an MSci in Chemistry, both from the University of Bristol. 

Kirsty Penkman's research focuses on the application of analytical chemistry to archaeological and geological questions. Her chemistry degree at the University of Oxford provided a unique opportunity to work in the field of archaeological science for her 4 th year MChem project; this interest took her to Newcastle for a PhD in geochemistry, and then to York with a postdoc and a Wellcome fellowship.  Now a Reader in Analytical Chemistry, her focus is on the analysis of proteins: their pathways of degradation, methods for their detection, and how these molecules can inform us of an organism’s life and death history. Collaborations with earth scientists and archaeologists, which have been integral to this research, have helped to push the analytical science forward, whilst advancing our understanding of our earth’s history. She runs the NERC-recognised amino acid dating facility, NEaar, and her work has been honoured by prizes from the Quaternary Research Association (2008 Lewis Penny Medal), the Geological Society (2010 Lyell Fund award), the Leverhulme Trust (2012 Philip Leverhulme Prize) and the Royal Society of Chemistry (2016 Joseph Black Award) and the New York Academy of Sciences (2020 Blavatnik Chemistry Laureate). As the PI in the EQuaTe Project, Kirsty is responsible for overall direction of the science, administration and co-ordination of the project and research team. 

Samantha Greeves (nee Presslee) is a research technician for the NEaar lab at the University of York and provides technical support for the EQuaTe project. Her background is in archaeological science with a BSc in archaeological and forensic science at Bournemouth University and an MSc in Bioarchaeology at the University of York. Her PhD investigated the survival of proteins into deep time. This involved analysing protein breakdown under different conditions, developing methods to detect degraded proteins and the use of palaeoproteomics in the phylogenetic analysis of fossil taxa. 

Helen Roberts is interested in the development and application of Luminescence dating techniques to assess the timing and rates of past landscape, climate and environmental change. Helen’s research has focused particularly on long terrestrial sedimentary records, often spanning many hundreds of thousands of years. Recent work includes deciphering the record of past environmental change preserved in lake sediments in Africa, and the links to human evolution, innovation, and dispersal of our human ancestors. She is also interested in wind-blown dust deposits (‘loess’), and the role of dust in past and future climate change. Helen holds a PhD from the University of Liverpool where she studied the impact of uranium-series disequilibrium on luminescence dating. She worked in the Luminescence Laboratory at the University of Durham, and taught in the Department of Geography at the University of Exeter, before joining Aberystwyth University in 1998 as a post-doctoral research associate, and later being appointed to a lectureship in Physical Geography in 2005. The Aberystwyth Luminescence Research Laboratory (ALRL) that Helen co-directs with Geoff Duller is internationally recognised for its expertise in this research area. She is Vice President of the Stratigraphy and Geochronology Commission (SACCOM) of INQUA, the International Union for Quaternary Research (2019 – present). Helen’s role in EQuaTe is to lead, along with Prof Geoff Duller, the thermoluminescence dating of opercula and other bio-carbonates that will be undertaken at Aberystwyth University. 

Sheila Taylor currently works part-time as research technician for the NEaar lab at the University of York and provides administrative and sample management support for the EQuaTe project. After graduating with a degree in Biochemistry, she has worked for the last 30 years processing and managing samples in a variety of settings, including the NHS, The Human Genome Project and the Biology and Chemistry Departments at the University of York. 

Dustin White is a geoarchaeologist with a particular interest in Eurasian prehistory. For many years he worked in the Lake Baikal area of Siberia studying late Quaternary floodplain and molluscan records, multi-proxy lake sediment core data and the archaeological record of the region, initially as part of his PhD at the University of Alberta and then as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge. From 2008-2013 he was a postdoc on the RESET project, based at the Institute of Archaeology in Oxford and the University of Southampton, investigating volcanic cryptotephra preserved in Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites across Europe and North Africa and its application as a novel dating and correlation technique. More recently, as a postdoc at Royal Holloway University of London, he expanded this work to examine the potential of cryptotephra in refining the chronology and climatic context of human evolution in the Levant.  As a PDRA with EQuaTe, Dustin coordinates and leads fieldwork and sample identification for the project and assist in laboratory preparation of malacological samples and the synthesis of archaeological data. 

Nicole Limondin-Lozouet is a research director at the CNRS in the Laboratoire de Géographie Physique (LGP) at Meudon. She is a specialist in Quaternary malacology. Nicole Limondin-Lozouet’s research in the field of Quaternary palaeoenvironments focuses on land-snails from the Palaearctic domain. Her research encompasses questions on biostratigraphy, palaeobiodiversity evolution during interglacial periods, patterns of malacological recolonization of continental Europe during Lateglacial times, species extinctions and modification of snail geographic ranges in response to climatic and anthropogenic impacts. She has been president of the AFEQ (French Quaternary Association) and Head Editor of the journal Quaternaire. Currently she is co-head of the LGP. Her role with EQuaTe is to assist in the recovery of opercula specimens from French Pleistocene alluvial deposits and coordinate discussion on biostratigraphic and aminostratigraphic implications on French sites. 

Lutz Maul is Head of the Quaternary small mammal section at the Senckenberg Research Station of Quaternary Palaeontology in Weimar, Germany. His research interests concern the morphology, evolution, systematics, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of Plio-Pleistocene small mammals of the Palaearctic, including morphometric changes in arvicolid molars. His role with EQuaTe will involve the interpretation and correlation of key biostratigraphical sequences investigated during the project. 

Simon Parfitt is a Principal Research Fellow at University College London, Institute of Archaeology, specializing in Lower Palaeolithic archaeology and vertebrate remains.  He is currently based at the Natural History Museum (London) where he is studying the Pleistocene faunal collections, with funding from the Calleva Foundation.  He has published major excavation projects on the Lower Palaeolithic sites of Happisburgh, Pakefield, Boxgrove, Barnham, Beeches Pit and Hoxne and undertaken fieldwork in Morocco, Spain and Russia.  His research interests include the earliest occupation of Europe, with a specialist interest in the contribution of Pleistocene vertebrates to biostratigraphy, palaeogeography, climate and environment. His current research interests include identifying vertebrate resources exploited by early humans for food and tools. 

Dr Richard Preece studied Zoology as an undergraduate at Cardiff University (1971-1974) before moving to the Department of Geology at Imperial College London, where he did his Ph.D (1978) and where he held a postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851. In the early 1980s, he moved to the University of Cambridge where he was based, first, in the Subdepartment of Quaternary Research, and second, in the University Museum of Zoology embedded in the Department of Zoology, where he has been since 1986. Dr Preece's research is focused on molluscs, especially non-marine species, an interest that has led to participation in expeditions to several remote islands including Tristan da Cunha and the Pitcairn Islands, as well as the hinterland of Lake Baikal. He uses molluscs as a forensic tool to reconstruct environments and climates of the recent past, especially during the Quaternary Ice Ages. This research is multidisciplinary and involves collaboration with a range of other specialists from a variety of backgrounds. It was during the Quaternary that early humans spread northwards across Europe, and he has collaborated with archaeologists on projects seeking to shed further light on early human history and the environments that then existed. 

Christine Hertler’s research focuses on human evolution and early human dispersals. Since 2008 she has worked as a paleobiologist at the ROCEEH Research Center studying the role of culture in the early expansions of humans between 3.5 million and 20,000 years ago in Africa and Eurasia. By training, Christine is a classical zoologist, who followed her inclinations to paleoanthropology and paleontology during her PhD on methods in evolutionary theory at Senckenberg. During the last 20 years, she has participated in and organized fieldwork in Indonesia, Tanzania and Georgia and studied mammalian fossils in collections housed in many other countries all over the world. She understands early human dispersals as a process resulting from and guided by both ecological interactions with the environment and cultural settings in human populations. The ROCEEH Research Center provides her with opportunities to develop an integrative perspective. The Research Center is a long-term research group funded by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and is based at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt and the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen.

Marie-Hélène Moncel is a research director at the CNRS and a specialist in hominin behaviour, in particular technology and land use patterns, from the earliest occupations in Europe to Neanderthals. She has directed several international research and field programs and has excavated and/or worked on Acheulian and Middle Paleolithic sites in France (Carpentier quarries, Moulin Quignon, la Noira, Payre, Abri du Maras and others), Italy (Ceprano localities) and the South Caucasus (Dmanisi, Tsona, Bondi Cave, Undo Cave, Ortvale Klde). She is now involved in the direction of the new fieldwork at the early Acheulian site of Notarchirico in Italy. She has contributed to exhibitions at the National Natural History Museum and Musée de l’Homme, as well as other French and foreign museums dedicated to Prehistory and the Palaeolithic. She is based at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and is also a member of the Erasmus Mundus “Prehistory and Quaternary” network. 

Wil Roebroeks is Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Leiden University and an expert in the field of the archaeology of early hominins, with a focus on Neanderthal studies. He has published widely on various aspects of the behaviour of extinct hominins, including their subsistence strategies, lithic technology and the chronology and environmental settings of their presence and absence in Eurasia. Roebroeks has conducted fieldwork in the Netherlands, in England, France, northern Russia and Germany. His current research focuses on the role of fire use in the development of the human niche. He is a founding member of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution (ESHE), of which he was Vice-President form 2011-2020 .

Chris Stringer is a member of the Advisory Board. He was a graduate of UCL, studied for his PhD at Bristol, and has worked at The Natural History Museum London since 1973, where he is a Research Leader in Human Origins. His early research was on the relationship of Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe, but through his work on the 'Recent African Origin' theory of modern human origins, he now collaborates with archaeologists, earth scientists and geneticists in attempting to reconstruct the evolution of modern humans globally. He has excavated at sites in Britain and abroad, and he is currently co-directing the Pathways to Ancient Britain project, funded by the Calleva Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and also a Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway and UCL. Chris has published over 300 scientific papers and his recent books include The Origin of Our Species (UK 2011), published in the USA as Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth (2012), Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story (2014, with Rob Dinnis), and Our Human Story (2018, with Louise Humphrey).