Commendation for Dr Amy Styring - School of Chemistry

Supervisor: Professor Richard Evershed

Funding: NERC Studentship

PhD project: Crop Nitrogen Isotope Value Expression in Bone Collagen of Ancient Fauna and Humans: A New Approach to Palaeodietary and Agricultural Reconstruction

“It is remarkable that the agricultural practices and diets of our ancestors are recorded in the stable isotope compositions of the structural protein collagen preserved in skeletons recovered from archaeological sites. Despite more than 30 years of research in laboratories all over the world, using the “you are what you eat” principle, critical gaps existed in our understanding, which were hindering the progress of the discipline.”

So remarks Professor Richard Evershed, who was elected FRS in 2010 for his ground-breaking work in the field of archaeological chemistry. He was commenting on the award-winning work of Amy Styring who, during her PhD, developed a new analytical chemical approach, which has provided hitherto unattainable insights and opened up major new avenues of research.  

Professor Evershed writes: “Amy tackled one of the most technically demanding PhDs I have ever supervised; her work is truly groundbreaking. She developed and tested a new technique for determing human, animal and plant protein nitrogen isotope compositions at the amino acid level for the first time. She studied systematically and with great analytical skill and rigour, the compositions of modern plants, ancient human and animal remains, dating back ca. 9000 years, from across Europe to the Near East, to provide fundamental new insights into how plant metabolism and agricultural practices translate into the human skeletal nitrogen isotope signals of ancient diet.”   

Biography

I come from Northumberland, where I went to King Edward VI School, Morpeth, before going to Exeter University to study Archaeology and Chemistry.  It was during my final year project, in which I investigated the chemical composition of a medicinal ointment from ancient Egypt, that I came across the work of Professor Evershed from the University of Bristol.  It was clear that Bristol is one of the best places in the UK to investigate archaeology using scientific techniques.  When I visited Bristol to discuss possible PhD topics, it was so nice to be in a buzzing chemistry department with top class instrumentation and expertise.  During my PhD I gained considerable experience in working as part of a multi-disciplinary research team, which inspired me to spend three months on a secondment to the Welsh Assembly, where I wrote briefings papers for politicians and became deeply interested in the role of scientists in informing policy.  I now have a job with the Royal Society of Chemistry, on the Science, Education and Industry graduate scheme.  My long-term goal is to work in education and policy, developing ways of promoting science to politicians and the wider public.