 He was previously Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Exeter.He was awarded the J.G.Russell Award (2004) by the Australian Academy of Science, the inaugural Sir Nicholas Shackleton Medal by the International Union for Quaternary Research in 2007, a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2008, the Bigsby Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2009, and the Frederick White Prize by the Australian Academy of Science in 2014.