Staff profiles
Dr S. Yoshi Maezumi
Honorary Research Fellow
My research is focused on Paleoecology, paleoclimatology, Amazonia, neotropics, biogeography, disturbance regimes, systems theory, neotropical pollen, phytolith analysis, Global Charcoal Database, stable isotopes, neotropical archaeology, anthropogenic climate change.
My teaching focuses on inspiring students to engage in their learning process by opening dialogues that encourage them to explore the natural and anthropogenic linkages between humans and the environment on different spatial and temporal scales.
My research uses paleoecological sediment proxy records including pollen, phytolith, stable isotope, charcoal, LOI, magnetic susceptibility, and lithological analysis to advance the understanding of long-term natural and anthropogenic paleoecological variability in the Neotropics.
Research interests
Amazon paleoecology, physical geography, human-ecosystem dynamics, paleofire, pollen, macrocharcoal, stable isotopes, phytoliths, vegetation dynamics, Amazonian archaeology,
Research collaborations
I am a post-doctoral researcher on the the ERC funded project Pre-Columbian Amazon Scale-Transformations (2014-2018) project, and am collaborating with the Je Landscapes of southern Brazil: Ecology, Power and History in a transitional landscapes during the Holocene project funded by AHRC-FAPESP (2014-2017) and The origins of plant domestication in the upper Madeira River basin in lowland South America (NERC-2015-2016).
Fieldwork
My fieldwork is based on the collection of lake and swamp sediment cores from the Amazon. I am currently working in several areas in the Brazilian and Bolivian Amazon. I typically use Livingston piston corers and Bolivian corers to collect sediments.