Profile

I grew up in the Devon countryside but having spent several years moving about I am now settled living in Durham, where I am studying for a PhD. I am an animal lover but sadly have no pets of my own (due to lack of time and space) so make sure I get lots of cuddles from the family Labradors whenever I visit my parents.

I like being outdoors and staying active and enjoy hiking, running (slowly) and bouldering (even though I’m pretty bad at it!)

I am also more than happy to have a lazy day on the sofa eating pizza and cake and watching movies! My pronouns are she/her.

I use special cameras, called camera traps to monitor wildlife. These cameras use infra-red sensors to detect differences in temperature in the surface in front of them. Animals have a different surface temperature to the background, so when they move in front of camera, the camera senses them and is triggered to take either a series of photographs or a short video.

We can then use information from these photos and videos to answer lots of different questions about wildlife. For example, which animals live there? What time are animals active? Do particular animals avoid other animals? My current research is looking into the best way to set a camera trap to make sure we get the best quality data. In particular I am interested in comparing photographs to videos to see which is more useful. Previously I have used camera traps to study leopard activity in South Africa, elephants in Kenya and mammal populations in Romania.

I also work with a citizen science project called ‘MammalWeb’. Citizen science is science that invites members of the public to get involved and participate. The MammalWeb project aims to improve our knowledge of wild mammals in Britain, and certain other European countries, by using camera traps to monitor them. Members of the public participate by placing camera traps near where they live and uploading the photos or videos they capture to the website. People can also participate by going to the website and helping to identify which animals are present in the footage. School projects provide an important contribution to MammalWeb, with many schools having purchased or borrowed a camera trap and used it to collect information in wildlife in their school grounds.

By involving members of the public, we can get camera trap data from many more locations and sort many more photos much quicker than one person working alone. This gives us better data about our mammal populations which can be used to inform conservation. Part of my research looks at how we can attract and encourage as many people as possible to take part in MammalWeb.

My typical day:

While I don’t really have a ‘typical day’ my favourite days are usually fieldwork days! My most recent fieldwork, to collect data for my PhD research, has involved working with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to survey the wildlife living in the Forest of Dean. As it’s a bit of a journey from where I live when I’m doing fieldwork I will travel down and spend a few days at a time working in the forest. This mostly involves travelling all around the forest to set up camera traps, or visiting existing camera trap sites to replace batteries and check the cameras are still working.

Fieldwork is so much easier when the sun is shining and the Forest of Dean is beautiful place to be able to spend a day working in.

However, it can be a lot more of a challenge when it is cold and rainy, so it is always good to be prepared with a good set of waterproofs and a flask of hot soup for lunch!

Another great thing about working in the Forest of Dean is the availability of nearby cafes – being able to stop and re-fuel with a cake break has been very important to this research!

Due to current covid restrictions I have not been able to do as much fieldwork recently and have been spending most days working on my laptop at home. This can still be exciting though as it involves looking through all the photos and videos I have collected and identifying which animals have been recorded. I am now also working on some data analysis, which means learning new skills in computer coding and statistics (something I find very difficult – and sometimes a bit boring!)

Working with the MammalWeb project also means I am involved in lots of public interactions and engagement activities. This can be great fun and adds variety to my day, even when I am working from home. This involves answering emails sent to MammalWeb, writing newsletters for the project and giving public talks about the project and my research. I also run social media accounts for MammalWeb, where I try to post interesting facts about mammals, games, quizzes and, of course, lots of nice photos!