She gained a 2:2 in botany at Queen's University Belfast in 1968 and a PhD in Palaeoecology in 1989.
She has produced a number of publications of which the best known may be Flora Hibernica, which she co-wrote along with J. Pilcher and published in 2001.
[1][2] She was the Director of Research in the School of Archaeology-Palaeoecology at Queen's University Belfast.
Valerie was Vice President of the INQUA Commission for Tephrochronology and Volcanology and was the Honorary Company Secretary of the Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd. She produced 30 peer-reviewed papers as listed in Scopus.
The most cited is "Dates of Holocene Icelandic volcanic eruptions from tephra layers in Irish peats" Pilcher, J.R., Hall, V.A., McCormac, F.G. Holocene 5 (1), pp.