Kat is a Quaternary geochronologist, sedimentologist and geomorphologist interested in drylands, specifically:

• how they have changed through time
• at what rate they have changed
• how arid, semi-arid and drought-affected landscapes respond to climatic changes on a range of scales
• interactions between people and environment over long timescales.

To answer these questions, I work with luminescence dating, geomorphology, stratigraphy and sedimentology. My main (but not my only!) geographic foci are Australia and Central Asia.

Kat Fitzsimmons is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment in the Faculty of Science.

Kat's research focuses on environmental change in drylands (arid, semi-arid and drought-affected regions) over Quaternary to more recent time periods. Her biography spans several continents and work at interdisciplinary institutes. Her PhD (ANU) investigated indications for the history of aridity in Australia's arid core; in her first postdoc (also at ANU) she expanded her perspective to work on past hydroclimatic change and human-environmental interactions on the semi-arid margins. She then moved to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany), where she intensified her research collaborations in the fields of archaeology and the environmental contexts for human evolution. This was followed by leadership of an independent Max Planck Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Mainz, Germany), which provided the opportunity to collaborate with atmospheric scientists and geochemists on large-scale climate histories. From 2021-2024 she was Professor for Terrestrial Sedimentology at the University of Tuebingen, where she reconnected with earth scientists, while maintaining her interdisciplinary research links. From November 2024 she joined the School of Earth Atmosphere and Environment, bringing her international and multi-disciplinary experience to her country of origin.