Dr Frances Butcher

School of Geography and Planning

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

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f.butcher@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 7972
Room C5, Geography and Planning Building

Full contact details

Dr Frances Butcher
School of Geography and Planning
Room C5
Geography and Planning Building
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
Profile

I am a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow in the Department of Geography at Sheffield. I am a planetary scientist and glacial geomorphologist researching the history of glaciation on Mars and Earth.

I obtained a BA in Geography from the University of Cambridge in 2015 before moving to The Open University to undertake a PhD entitled 'Wet-Based Glaciation on Mars', which I completed in 2019. I then moved to the University of Sheffield as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant on the ERC-funded PALGLAC project (PI: Prof Chris Clark), using glacial landforms to reconstruct the flow dynamics of the former Scandinavian Ice Sheet on Earth.

I began my current Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship at Sheffield in 2022. I use data from satellites orbiting Mars to analyse the landscapes generated by past and present glaciers on the Red Planet. In doing so, I aim to better understand the history of environmental change on Mars, with a particular focus on the history of glacial meltwater production.

My research aims to inform future robotic and human exploration of Mars’ ice deposits. For example, I was selected by NASA and the Canadian, Japanese and Italian space agencies to serve as a member of the 'Measurement Definition Team' for the International Mars Ice Mapper (‘I-MIM’) Mission.

I founded and lead the 'CryoMars' network of UK researchers and international collaborators working on Mars Cryosphere and Earth Analogue topics. I am also on the Science team for the CaSSIS camera on ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, and serve on the UK Space Agency's Space Exploration Advisory Committee.

I am also an Associate Editor for the journal Earth Surface Dynamics (ESurf).

Research interests
My key research interests include:
  • Landforms produced by glaciation and glacial meltwater on Mars, and their implications for environmental conditions in Mars' recent and ancient past.
  • Current ice deposits on Mars, their implications for recent environmental change, and their potential for future sampling and in situ resource utilisation by human/robotic missions.
  • Landforms produced by past ice sheets on Earth, and their implications for ice sheet dynamics.
  • Using comparisons to Earth to better understand glaciation on Mars (and vice versa).
Publications

Books

Journal articles

Chapters

Conference proceedings papers

Theses / Dissertations

  • Butcher FEG (2019) Wet-Based Glaciation on Mars. RIS download Bibtex download

Datasets

Other

Preprints

Grants
  • 2022: Principal Investigator, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship. 'Deciphering Mars’ glacial landscapes to underpin science goals of human missions'.
  • 2020: British Society of Geomorphology Conference Support Grant (£500): CryoMars meeting, University of Sheffield.
  • 2019: International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) Conference Grant (€1320).
  • 2019: Lunar and Planetary Institute Career Development Award ($1500).
  • 2019: GeoPlanet Research Mobility Grant (€1200): Awarded by Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique, University of Nantes.
  • 2018: Royal Astronomical Society Travel Grant (£900).
  • 2018: British Society for Geomorphology Postgraduate Conference Attendance Grant (£300).
  • 2017: Pierazzo International Student Travel Award ($2000): Awarded to one non-US graduate student globally per year by the Planetary Science Institute.
  • 2016: Europlanet Grant: Full funding to attend Europlanet RPIF 3D training workshop, Mullard Space Science Laboratory.
  • 2016: 6th International Mars Polar Conference European Student Travel Grant (€666): Awarded by the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences.
  • 2015: Ogden Trust Trustees' Award (£900).
  • 2015: British Society for Geomorphology Postgraduate Conference Attendance Grant (£850).
  • 2015: ProViDE Summer School EU Student Travel Grant (£500).
Teaching interests
I teach on the following modules in Sheffield:
  • Polar and Alpine Change MSc(Res) Research Project
  • The Planets
  • Our Frozen Planet
  • Critical Digital Geographies in Practice (MSc Applied GIS )

Past teaching activities include:
  • Guest lectures for 'Digital Terrain Analysis' module, University of Manchester MSc Geographical Information Science (2019 and 2020)
  • Invited Workshop Coordinator: 'Planetary Geomorphology in Mars Landing Site Selection', South East Physics Network GRADnet Planetary Science Workshop, National Physical Laboratory, London, (2016).
  • Demonstrator: Natural Environment Research Council CENTA Doctoral Training Program ArcGIS Training Course, The Open University (2016)
Professional activities and memberships
  • 2nd prize for '3 minute thesis' competition (2018), Open University STEM faculty.
  • Nature Astronomy Prize for Best Student Presentation (2017) at the 1st British Planetary Science Congress, Glasgow, UK, 4-5 Dec. 2017 (Poster).
  • Paper subsequently reported in a Nature Astronomy Research Highlight
  • John Glen Prize (2017) for the best student talk at the International Glaciological Society's British Branch Meeting, Lancaster University, UK, 5-7 Sept. 2017.
  • Prize for best student talk (2017) at the Astrobiology Society of Britain: Habitability Beyond Earth conference. Open University, UK, 13-14 Sept. 2017.
  • William Vaughan Lewis Prize (2015), University of Cambridge prize for undergraduate geography dissertation.
  • Corpus Christi College Prize (2015), Corpus Christi College (University of Cambridge) prize for undergraduate dissertation.
  • Hewitt Exhibition (2015), Corpus Christi College (University of Cambridge) prize for contributions to outreach and admissions initiatives between 2012 and 2015.