Specific responsibility: Head of Earth Systems, the museum's mineral, meteorite and rock collections.

Research interests: Geocollection data infrastructure, historical geocollections and calcite morphology.

Dr Walcott started her academic career at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand where she gained a BSc(hons) and a research Masters in geology and geophysics. After working in Canada and the UK, she went on to do a PhD in structural geology at Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands. This was followed by a postdoc at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris and two Research Fellowships at the University of Edinburgh in tectonic geomorphology, the study of surface processes.

Dr Walcott’s recent academic research has been largely focussed on designing data infrastructure for geocollections. The global push to digitise collections - driven by the urgent need to address the Biodiversity Crisis - has left geocollections poorly represented. To help remedy this, she co-leads the development of the Mineral Extension for Darwin Core, and, together with her team and volunteers, has worked on gathering and refining associated geospecimen metadata. Her other research interests include historical mineral collections and calcite morphology.

Her other current professional roles include being a Director of The Society of Mineral Museum Professionals, a voting member (and former inaugural Chair) of the Subcommission on Geocollections at the IUGS (International Union of Geological Sciences). She previously served as Chair of the Earth Science specialist group of CETAF (2021-2024); Treasurer of the Geological Curators Group (2017-2024); and Editorial Board of Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2018 - 2020) among others.

Selected publications

Stone, P., Walcott, R., and Aspen, P. 2023. Shackleton and Bruce: disentangling Antarctic geological collections at National Museums Scotland. Geological Curator11 (8): 527-534. https://doi.org/10.55468/GC1468

Haston, E.M., Dillen, M., Leeflang, S., Addink, W., Weiland, C., Triebel, D., Rindal, E., Penzlin, A., Walcott, R., Humphries, J., Chapman, C. 2023. Mapping across Standards to Calculate the MIDS Level of Digitisation of Natural Science Collections. Peer reviewed Abstract. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards7: e112672. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.7.112672

Campbell, L.R., Lloyd, G.E., Phillips, R.J., Walcott R.C. & R.E. Holdsworth. 2020. Stress fields of ancient seismicity recorded in the dynamic geometry of pseudotachylyte in the Outer Hebrides Fault Zone, UK. Journal of the Geological Society. https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs2020-101

Campbell, L. R., Phillips, R.J., Walcott, R.C. & Lloyd, G.E. 2019. Rupture geometries in anisotropic amphibolite recorded by pseudotachylytes in the Gairloch Shear Zone, NW Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology: https://sjg.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2019/07/12/sjg2019-003

Campbell L. S., J. Charnock, A. Dyer, S. Hillier, S. Chenery, F. Stoppa, C. M. B. Henderson, Walcott, R. & M. Rumsey. 2016. Determination of zeolite-group mineral compositions by electron probe microanalysis. Mineralogical Magazine 80 (5): 781–807. https://doi.org/10.1180/minmag.2016.080.044

Sinclair, H., Mudd, S., Dingle, E., Hobley, D., Robinson, R. & Walcott, R. 2016. Squeezing river catchments through tectonics: Shortening and erosion across the Indus Valley, NW Himalaya. Geological Society of America Bulletin 129 (1-2): 203-217. https://doi.org/10.1130/B31435.1

Upton, P. Craw D. and Walcott, R.C. 2014. Far-Field Deformation Resulting from Rheologic Differences Interacting with Tectonic Stresses: An Example from the Pacific/Australian Plate Boundary in Southern New Zealand. Geosciences 4 (3): 93-113. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences4030093

M.D. Hurst, S.M. Mudd, M. Attal, K. Yoo and R. Walcott. 2013. Influence of lithology on hillslope morphology and response to tectonic forcing in the Sierra Nevada of California. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 118: 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrf.20049

D. Craw, P. Upton, R. Walcott, C. Burridge, and J. Waters. 2012. Tectonic controls on the evolution of the Clutha River catchment, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 55 (4): 345-359. https://doi.org/10.1080/00288306.2012.709184

Walcott R.C. and M. A. Summerfield. 2009. Universality and variability in basin outlet spacing: implications for the two-dimensional form of drainage basins. Basin Research 21 (2): 147-155. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2117.2008.00379.x

For further publications see the National Museums Scotland Research Repository.