Karen Bacon

NUIG

Dr Karen L. Bacon is a plant ecologist and palaeoecologist in the School of Natural Sciences at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She completed her PhD in plant palaeoecology in 2012 in University College Dublin. She then spend several years as a lecturer in the University of Leeds before returning to Ireland in 2019. Dr Bacon’s interests span palaeobotany to modern plant ecology and incorporates elements of plant biology, geology and chemistry.  She is particularly interested in understanding plant extinction and how plants respond to environmental change both in a modern context and in relation to environmental upheavals, such as mass extinctions, in the geological record. She is also interested in taphonomy, the science of fossil preservation, and understanding what quality of information can be determined from the fossil record.  Her modern ecological research focuses on understanding invasive species, plant chemistry, ecosystem services, and how the general public precieve and interact with plants.