Dr Rosie Huck

Rosie is a Hulme Junior Research Fellow at the School of Geography and Environment (SoGE) and Brasenose College. She is a geomorphologist with a particular focus on aeolian processes and biogeomorphic interactions in dryland regions. Her work combines field studies and remote sensing to understand factors that influence the emission of mineral dust.

Before joining Oxford, Rosie was a former GB athlete and student-athlete at Arizona State University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in Geography (BSc Hons). She then returned to the UK to complete a master’s in Polar and Alpine Change at the University of Sheffield. Her master’s research used remotely sensed data to investigate dust emissions from high-latitude regions.

Rosie completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2025. Her doctoral work explored how fire impacts wind erosion dynamics and dust emissions in the southwest Kalahari. This work adopted a hybrid approach, combining remote sensing with field measurements, to quantify fine-scale relationships influencing soil erodibility in post-fire environments.

Following her DPhil, Rosie was a Lecturer Climate and Environmental Change at the University of Southampton. Alongside her teaching, she was the co-recipient of a National Environment Research Council (NERC) grant to investigate changes in aeolian sediment transport over recently vegetated surfaces. She is currently a Hume Junior Research Fellow at Brasenose College, where she is investigating the impact of biological soil crusts on dust emission. Her broader research interests include geomorphology, sedimentology, aeolian processes, biogeomorphology, remote sensing, sediment transport, and dust dynamics.
 

Rosie’s work bridges both ecology and geomorphology, focusing on how biotic factors influence the physical environment. Her current research investigates how assemblages of biological soil crusts (biocrusts) can limit dust emissions from dryland landscapes. This research utilises space-based remote sensing to spatially and temporally map biocrust cover across varying landscapes and environmental conditions. Field studies provide valuable ground-truth data for the remote sensing work, using innovative methodologies such as Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs). Alongside ground truth data, Rosie contributes to growing the global dataset on dust-biocrust interactions through portable wind tunnel studies. By investigating these interactions, her work aims to help parameterise global dust flux and improve in the understanding of future environmental change.

Rosie contributes to departmental teaching through the FHS Desert Landscapes and Dynamics module and the undergraduate fieldtrips to both Tenerife and Dorset.