Andrew Haggart graduated with a first class honours degree in Geographical Studies (1978) from St Andrews University and undertook his PhD (1982) at Durham University researching Holocene sea-level changes in the Moray Firth area of north-east Scotland. During three further years as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at City of London Polytechnic he investigated the expansion and decline of the Caledonian pine forest during the Holocene in the Rannoch Moor area of west-central Scotland.