Tim Heaton

Tim Heaton

Professor of Applied Statistics, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Leeds

I am an interdisciplinary academic working at the intersection of statistics and the environmental sciences. Originally trained as a methodological statistician, I became interdisciplinary through my involvement with the International Radiocarbon Calibration (INTCAL) Working Group which began in 2009.

All radiocarbon dates must be calibrated before they can be interpreted. The INTCAL group provide the internationally-ratified standards for this calibration. Our research helps to create the ultimate clock by which we study our past – allowing us to explain our present, and accurately predict/mitigate our future.

This is essential to designing climate and environment policy: providing a critical underpinning to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a better understanding of the Earth and climate system, and insight into societal responses to environmental change.

My environmental science research has been publicised internationally, including in Scientific American, Science, and Nature. I have generated Research Excellence Framework (REF) impact case studies in 2014 and 2021, and I have recently been lead author on an invited review of my field in the journal Science looking at radiocarbon’s use as a key tracer to study the Earth system and carbon cycle.