Having completed a Masters in Environmental Economics and Environmental Management with Distinction, I worked for a local NGO in Sri Lanka as a Research Assistant before becoming the Research Intern for the IUCN SSC Pangolin Specialist Group. I worked as a Research Consultant from November 2020 until starting my DPhil, primarily working for the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) on the WILDMEAT Project, as well as for WWF and the University of Oxford. I was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science (ICCS) in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford from February to August 2022.

In recent decades, interventions have been implemented to reduce unsustainable wild meat use, such as alternative livelihood projects and behaviour change campaigns to reduce demand for wild meat. My DPhil project aims to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of these interventions across sub-Saharan Africa. This will include identifying which areas are targeted by wild meat interventions and whether these correlate with hotspots of unsustainable wild meat use, and which interventions monitor and evaluate their outcomes, as well as the methods they use and whether they have been effective. The project will specifically focus on the role of women in wild meat use, including whether women are considered or involved in the design and implementation of wild meat interventions, and the impacts that these interventions may have on women’s livelihoods.

I am excited to be joining WildCRU as a DPhil student in October 2022 and am very grateful to be funded by the Valerie Mitchell Scholarship with WildCRU and Lady Margaret Hall.