Dr Nadia Khalaf

Qualifications:

BA (Hons), MSc, PhD

Career:

I currently work at the Met Office in Climate Services Development, within the International Applied Science and Services (IASAS) team. In addition, I hold an honorary appointment as a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology and History.

I began my academic career as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, before joining the University of Exeter in 2016 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. My multidisciplinary research explores the impacts of human activity and climate change on African heritage. Before leaving the University of Exeter, I was the heritage lead in Exeter Innovation.

As a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Sixth Assessment Report (2022) I focused on heritage in the Africa chapter. I have also co-authored two papers published in Nature Climate Change, one addressing climate threats to heritage sites in Africa, and the other exploring the decolonisation climate heritage research.

My field experience includes leading projects, surveys, and excavations across Ethiopia, Benin, and Libya, as well as Tunisia, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. I also have extensive experience in British commercial archaeology. Throughout my career, I have worked collaboratively with a wide range of partners and stakeholders globally, and I value building open, equitable relationships.

I hold a PhD from the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, an MSc in Geographical Information Science (GIS) from the University of Leicester, and a BA in Archaeology and History from the University of Reading.

In 2023, I was named a Clore Leadership Emerging Leader. I am currently Review Editor on the Editorial Board of Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology in the speciality section on Landscape and Geological Processes.