Kirsty Elizabeth Helena Penkman is a biochemist and geochemist known for her research in biomolecular archaeology, the use of ancient DNA, amino acid dating, and other biomolecules in order to date fossils and learn about the world as it was in prehistoric times. She is a reader in chemistry at the University of York. Penkman's research has dated stone tools found in East Anglia to 700,000 years ago, the oldest artifacts known in Northern Europe.She has argued that climate change and human development are likely to destroy the ancient biological materials that go into her studies.