John Murray is a lecturer in palaeontology in Earth & Ocean Sciences, which is part of the School of Natural Sciences in the National University of Ireland Galway. He holds a BA and PhD from Trinity College Dublin and taught there for two years before taking up his present lecturing position in NUI Galway in 2003. He teaches to all years at undergraduate level, mainly in areas dealing with palaeontology, biological evolution and the history of the earth. John is equally at home teaching to students in a large lecture hall, small classroom, laboratory or even outdoors (in the field) at a rock outcrop (preferably somewhere scenic!) He has completed postgraduate training in teaching and learning in higher education and has received two NUI Galway teaching awards.
John has quite has wide-ranging research interests in all aspects of palaeontology, palaeoclimatology and geology. Recent research has investigated the timing and magnitude of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age utilising geochemical proxies preserved in tiny conodont microfossils, and also the more recent Late Pleistocene to Holocene palaeoenvironmental history of Galway Bay. He also collaborates with an international team investigating Pleistocene human evolution and migration through the southern Caucasus.