I joined WildCRU as a DPhil student in 2021, supported by the NERC Doctoral Training Partnership in Environmental Research, and am co-supervised by researchers at the Institute of Zoology, ZSL.

The aim of my DPhil is to assess means of mitigating the impacts of climate change on the endangered African wild dog (Lycaon pictus). I will be working with behavioural, spatial, and demographic data, using field-based and computational methods, and will explore both local and range-wide intervention options to inform strategy for the conservation of the species. Fieldwork will take place in South Africa, where I am collaborating with the Endangered Wildlife Trust and working with local reserve wildlife management.

I studied BSc Biology at the University of Bristol, graduating in 2017. Over the following two years, I spent 12 months in South Africa on the Dwarf Mongoose Research project. There, I carried out daily field research investigating the behavioural ecology of the species, and managed the field site for 6 months. In 2020 I then completed a MRes degree in Biodiversity, Evolution and Conservation at University College London, receiving a Distinction along with the Best Student Award and Dean’s List Award for outstanding academic achievement. The first of my two MRes research projects investigated the impacts of human & livestock encroachment on bat activity in the Maasai Mara. The second modelled African wild dog distributions across Africa to inform survey & reintroduction efforts for the species, and was carried out under supervision by ZSL. Before beginning my DPhil, I spent 6 months as a project consultant to the Bat Conservation Trust on a project assessing 10 years’ of audio data across the Island of Jersey.