I am currently carrying out a fellowship at Imperial. My work focuses on exploring Anthropocene landscape permeability for species key to human health and well-being. In short, my aim is to understand how human-modified land uses influence the permeability (i.e. ease of movement) of landscapes for range-shifting species, with a focus on species key for food system sustainability and disease spread.
Beyond my fellowship, I am also a Sustainability Champion at Silwood Park and a Fellows Rep for the Department of Life Sciences. As part of my Reps role, I have also joined the Early Career Researcher Institute Committee and Department of Life Sciences EDI Committee.
SHEFS Global
"The primary purpose of Sustainable & Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) is to provide new, interdisciplinary research that policymakers can use to shape food systems that will deliver healthy, accessible, affordable and sustainable food for future populations."
From 2021 - 2023, I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow investigating the impacts of land-use change and climate change on biodiversity within South African agricultural areas, and the resilience of nature's benefits to people under such changes. I currently have 2 lead or co-lead author papers in preparation.
Grants and awards
Principal Investigator, Short Term Scientific Mission, European Cooperation in Science and Technology (InsectAI), July 2025
"Harnessing insect-focused AI-assisted technology for one health monitoring in agroecosystems”, with collaborators from the TRIBE lab (Laboratory of Robotics and IoT for Smart Precision Agriculture and Forestry) at the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science in Portugal.
Awardee, European Talent Academy, Feb-Dec 2025
Awardees on this programme run by Imperial College London, Technische Universität München, and Politecnico di Milano, establish international and transdisciplinary project teams and develop proposals for further research collaboration. The theme for 2025 is ‘Water and Food for Healthy and Resilient Societies’.
Joint Principal Investigator, NERC Cross Disciplinary Research for Environmental Solutions – UCL Internal Call, Jan-Apr 2023
I worked with researchers from the Institute for Sustainable Resources at UCL on a NERC Cross Disciplinary Research grant to investigate the vulnerability of healthy diets in the UK and South Africa to pollinator losses.
Working groups
Working group – InsectAI (Using image-based AI for insect monitoring and conservation) member,
(2024 - Present)
This COST Action is focused around using image-based AI for insect monitoring and conservation. I am participating in working group 1 (identifying societal needs) and 4 (data analysis and integration).
Combined effects of climate change and habitat destruction on biodiversity (2024 - Present)
I was invited to be part of a working group run by Dr Andrew Suggitt and Dr Alistair Auffret (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences). The aim of the group is to bring together land-use and climate change experts who use space-for-time and/or time series analyses to identify and explore how different lines of evidence can be used for the benefit of biodiversity conservation (paper in review). Workshops have taken place in 2024 and 2025, another one is scheduled for 2026.
Bumblebee responses to environmental changes (2018 - 2021)
I have been fortunate enough to join Dr Tim Newbold on two trips to the University of Ottawa to work alongside Professor Jeremy Kerr and Dr Peter Soroye. This has been funded by an International Exchange Award (from the Royal Society), secured by Tim and Jeremy, to investigate how bumblebee species are responding to land-use and climate change.
Field research
GVI Field Staff (2015)
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This staff position on Global Vision International's (GVI) remote base in Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica, provided extensive experience in teaching an international group of volunteers how to collect biodiversity data in the field. Techniques I taught included:
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Use of camera traps
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Forest (by foot) and canal (by canoe) transect surveys
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Tagging and collecting biometric data from sea turtles
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Data input and management
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Other responsibilities
Present
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Committee member, International Association for Landscape Ecology, UK chapter (2025 – Present)
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Mental Health First Aider (2025 – Present)
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Sustainability Champion at Silwood Park (2024 – Present)
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Fellows Rep for the Department of Life Sciences, Imperial (2024 – Present)
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Member of the Early Career Research Institute Committee, and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committees (2024 – Present)
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Early Career Rep, BES Conservation Ecology Group (2024 – Present)
Past
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Postdoc Representative on the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Team within The Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment (GEE; 2021 – 2023)
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Co-organiser of Joint Group Meetings between UCL's Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research and the Centre for Life's Origins and Evolution (2022 – 2023)
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Co-organiser of CBER’s ‘Shut up & Write’ sessions (2023) and an Athena Swan mini-hackathon (2022)
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Member of UCL’s Green Champion Network, helping to make UCL a sustainable and heathy work place (2021 – 2023)
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PhD Student Representative for GEE at the Division of Biosciences Staff-Student Consultative Committee (2017 – 2020).
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This included organising, applying for funding, and managing budgets for conferences, social events, and competitions
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PhD student representative for GEE at the Academic Staff Meetings (2017 – 2020).
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Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research (UCL) Seminar Organiser (2017 - 2019)
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PhD Student Representative on the Div. of Biosciences Wellbeing Initiative (2019)
Work culture
I strive to create a diverse, welcoming, safe, and enjoyable research culture. During my time within the Global Biodiversity Change Group at UCL, I helped to write a set of guiding principles for the group. I have also written a similar set of principles that I share with my own supervisees. These principles aim to improve the work culture within academia. I encourage anyone reading this to have a look at them (and please get in touch if you have feedback on how they could be improved).