About
I'm a restoration scientist, lecturer in environmental science and professional triathlete. My research investigates how to most effectively restore ecosystems and how to scale up restoration. I have several local research projects on urban tree planting, restoration of ancient and riparian forests. After many years of research in Latin-America, my focus has now turned to the UK, and the scalable restoration of its many degraded ecosystems.
I partner with Forestry England, the New Forest, the Hampshire Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, Plant Eastleigh and several private landowners to conduct applied, need-driven research.
I'm also setting up several reforestation experiments in the local area to investigate the most biodiverse and cost-effective methods for woodland creation, as well as long-term monitoring networks for local restoration interventions.
Publications
Teaching
Teaching philosophy:
My teaching philopophy is coined by a desire to make teaching engaging, interactive and applied. As such, I involve lots of practitioners and guest speakers into my lectures, thrive to provide field and practical experience, and aim to inspire students.
I lead the module 'Biodiversity, restoration and applied ecology in a changing world' and co-teach on the following modules:
- Envrionmental Law
- Nature Based Solutions
- Climate Change: Science, Impacts & Policies
Dissertation supervision
I particularly enjoy supervising students who want to research applied eoclogical topics researching a solution to a real world problem, whether it is using fieldwork, conducting interviews or remote analysis methods. I have a range of dissertation project-ideas co-created with NGOs and government agency. Reach out if you want to find out more! A selection of past dissertations I have supervised on applied ecological research:
BSc
- Evaluating the Success of Natural Succession in Restoring Native Forests on Eucalyptus-Felled Sites in a Spanish Ecological Reserve (Rhys Naylor)
- Understanding Ecological Responses to Fire in a Semi-Natural UK Woodland (Maia Ziv)
- The impact of non-native Eucalyptus globulus on plant biodiversity and soil health in Galicia, Spain. (Connor Snellgrove)
- ‘Rooting’ for change: Exploring the difference in Mangrove Extent and Carbon Storage in Northeastern Brazil between 2014 and 2024. (Emma Bravo)
- Analysis of post-fire vegetation recovery trends following the 2004 Alaskan Wildfire Season (Thomas Harvey)
- A temporal spatial study of Turtles and Sargassum: An analysis of Western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Florida coastal waters. (Holly Marshall)
MSc
- Biodiversity Dynamics in Chalk Grasslands - Elevation and Transect-Based Analysis (Thiyaagu Venkatachalam)
- Investigating the Potential of Svalbard Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) as an Indicator Species of Tundra Greening using a Generalised Additive Model (Eleesha Peters)
Internships
I regularly offer mini research internships of 1-2 months, where students tackle a research question using secondary data, or small fieldwork stints, to produce a final scientific report and gain valuable academic skills.
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Specialty
I am an ecologist by training, specialized in restoration ecology, functional ecology, with a particular focus on forested ecosystems. My past work has been focused on the Neotropics (Brazil and Peru), mainly on understudied tropical montane ecosystems. My PhD research investigated opportunities and challenges in the restoration of tropical montane forests using an interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder approach.
Against the backdrop of accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss, my primary research interests is investigating how we can best deploy ecological restoration and rewilding to achieve biodiversity, livelihood and climate goals. I'm interested in effective planning and strategic design of ecosystem restoration and rewilding, and in ways to include people in it through a socio-ecological approach. I focus particulalry on forested ecosystems, such as Ancient Woodlands, Riparian Forests and Urban Woodlands.
To this end, I use ecological field surveys, qualitative social methods and larger scale remote sensing techniques. More recently I'm also including technologies such as environmental DNA (eDNA) as part of my repertoire.
Research aims
In this UN Decade on Restoration, I turn my focus to problem-focused questions relating to the effective scaling up of restoration of various ecosystems in the UK, Europe and the tropics. My research interests are largely of applied nature, aiming to aid the effective implementation and the monitoring of restoration interventions. Some key questions I am researching are:
1) Where do priority areas lie that optimize biodiversity goals, livelihoods, carbon sequestration and hydrological ecosystem services?
2) How can ecosystem restoration interventions be designed in a way to contribute effectively to biodiversity gain and net zero?
3) What restoration approaches are most cost-effective and realistic to scale up restoration across landscapes?