Island systems with broad interests in forest and vertebrate ecology, terrestrial protected areas and the dimensions of human interactions with these systems.
Research Area
My research focuses on understanding island systems, the threatened species and habitats on those islands, and the human communities within these systems. Islands are critical areas of focus of global biodiversity conservation efforts due to their high levels of biological uniqueness, vulnerability to external shocks, and their often complex socio-economic, political and historical legacies of colonialism.
My research is informed by my background as a scientist-practitioner, having worked at the interface between science, policy and practice of conservation on islands. This has led me to focus my research on addressing knowledge gaps around species of conservation concern and species and habitats exploited by people. These studies have included the population ecology of rare plants and insular birds, hunting impacts on island vertebrates, and development and climate change impacts on threatened island ecosystems such as coastal dry forests and mangroves. My work has used GIS and remote sensing for protected areas design, and has more recently focused on policy issues around local community values, perspectives of nature, conservation management decision-making, and opportunities for capacity strengthening.
I maintain a wide range of research links with government, CBOs and NGOs in the Caribbean and the UK.
Project Interests
I would be happy to develop projects in broad areas of island conservation. I would welcome interdisciplinary studentship projects that work at the intersection of local community value systems and threatened island forest ecosystems patterns and processes. I am interested in developing projects related to understanding the vulnerability of high-altitude ecological communities to climate change, and the impact of such changes on ecosystem services these natural systems provide. I am also interested in the use of remote sensing to characterize and understand the sensitivity of these ecosystems to anthropogenic change, and in modelling population and community response to anthropogenic drivers.