Background
I grew up in southern Africa, where I was born in Namibia but spent most of my time in South Africa and Zimbabwe. I moved to the UK when I was 20, and then moved to Sweden in 2012 to begin my PhD. I successfully defended my PhD on the 18th November 2016, almost four years to the day after arriving. I moved to the Netherlands in Dec'16 where I will start my post-doc in Jan'17. My favourite hobbies are to travel and to take photographs, both of these motivated by seeing and experiencing nature. I am a keen birdwatcher and generally enjoy spending time outdoors. I participate in a variety of sports, more recently triathlons where I have an interest in cycling especially.
My working career initially started in the field of accountancy however I have always had an interest in working with animals. My first experience of this was on a remote beach in Costa Rica working on a conservation project for nesting Leatherback Sea Turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) for four months. Shortly after this I entered the BSc program at the University of Kent where I had the opportunity to travel to the Peruvian Amazon to collect data for my final year thesis titled “The Diversity and Abundance of Wading Birds (Ciconiiformes) in the Yavari Valley”. After graduating I worked as a research officer in Madagascar where we conducted baseline research in an unprotected dry deciduous forest. Research work included collection of reptile morphometrics (snake, chameleon and lizard), density surveys of lemurs and chameleons, small mammal trapping, bird surveys and pitfall trapping. I worked in Madagascar for just over six months after which I joined an MSc program at Imperial College London which is where I gained my interest in the field of spatial ecology. My MSc thesis was titled “How does the landscape structure shape the movement and feeding patterns of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) in Sweden” and was done in collaboration with the Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, SLU. During my research I used novel methods to identify the movement characteristics, home ranges and habitat selection of red deer in two differing landscapes in southern Sweden, which was later published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research.
I completed my PhD in November 2016 with the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Umeå, Sweden. The overall theme of my PhD was to strengthen the link between movement ecology and wildlife management and conservation. I focused on the management of moose in Sweden, where more than 300 individuals have been tracked since 2003 across ten differing study areas. My PhD has thus far resulted in four publications, with another three manuscripts in preparations. The project, along with more detailed descriptions of each publication, are expanded upon here within the following sub-page of my site.
I began my post-doc in January 2017 with the Department of Animal Ecology and Physiology at Radboud University, Nijmegen in the Netherlands. I work within a project called CHIRP, which aims to understand the Cumulative Human Impact on biRd Populations. I study the Eurasian oystercatcher, which has been declining rapidly in recent decades. The project aims to understand the causes of the decline so that we can prioritise conservation actions. We aim to develop the research in such a way that it can be transferred to other species as well.
Education
PhD at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).
MSc in Conservation Science at Imperial College, London.
BSc in Wildlife Conservation at the Durrell Institute of Conservation & Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent.
Current Project and role
Cumulative Human Impact on biRd Populations (CHIRP) with Radboud University where I am a post-doctoral researcher and in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Terrestrial Ecology (NIOO) and the Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology (SOVON).
Project Summary
The project CHIRP (http://chirpscholekster.nl/, in Dutch), focuses on quantifying how human threats accumulate to impact the state and vital rates of an individual. An important theme is linking winter and summer areas to identify carry-over effects. My role within the project is to develop a migratory network meta-population model that incorporates the full-annual cycle of the oystercatcher. The model will incorporate historical data and new data collected by other sub-projects within CHIRP. To date over 10,000 oystercatchers have been colour-ringed and more than 130,000 observations have been recorded on wadertrack.nl. A large effort is also being made to measure reproductive success, particularly for inland breeding birds as part of a wider initiative to conserve meadow nesting birds. These datasets, together with new data collected by two PhD students in the project, will form a core component of the meta-population model. We aim to identify the cumulative and relative impacts of human threats, how they are connected, and thereby determine efficient mitigation and management actions that may reverse the decline of the species.
Google Scholar Profile
ResearchGate Profile
ORC ID
I grew up in southern Africa, where I was born in Namibia but spent most of my time in South Africa and Zimbabwe. I moved to the UK when I was 20, and then moved to Sweden in 2012 to begin my PhD. I successfully defended my PhD on the 18th November 2016, almost four years to the day after arriving. I moved to the Netherlands in Dec'16 where I will start my post-doc in Jan'17. My favourite hobbies are to travel and to take photographs, both of these motivated by seeing and experiencing nature. I am a keen birdwatcher and generally enjoy spending time outdoors. I participate in a variety of sports, more recently triathlons where I have an interest in cycling especially.
My working career initially started in the field of accountancy however I have always had an interest in working with animals. My first experience of this was on a remote beach in Costa Rica working on a conservation project for nesting Leatherback Sea Turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) for four months. Shortly after this I entered the BSc program at the University of Kent where I had the opportunity to travel to the Peruvian Amazon to collect data for my final year thesis titled “The Diversity and Abundance of Wading Birds (Ciconiiformes) in the Yavari Valley”. After graduating I worked as a research officer in Madagascar where we conducted baseline research in an unprotected dry deciduous forest. Research work included collection of reptile morphometrics (snake, chameleon and lizard), density surveys of lemurs and chameleons, small mammal trapping, bird surveys and pitfall trapping. I worked in Madagascar for just over six months after which I joined an MSc program at Imperial College London which is where I gained my interest in the field of spatial ecology. My MSc thesis was titled “How does the landscape structure shape the movement and feeding patterns of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) in Sweden” and was done in collaboration with the Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, SLU. During my research I used novel methods to identify the movement characteristics, home ranges and habitat selection of red deer in two differing landscapes in southern Sweden, which was later published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research.
I completed my PhD in November 2016 with the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Environmental Studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Umeå, Sweden. The overall theme of my PhD was to strengthen the link between movement ecology and wildlife management and conservation. I focused on the management of moose in Sweden, where more than 300 individuals have been tracked since 2003 across ten differing study areas. My PhD has thus far resulted in four publications, with another three manuscripts in preparations. The project, along with more detailed descriptions of each publication, are expanded upon here within the following sub-page of my site.
I began my post-doc in January 2017 with the Department of Animal Ecology and Physiology at Radboud University, Nijmegen in the Netherlands. I work within a project called CHIRP, which aims to understand the Cumulative Human Impact on biRd Populations. I study the Eurasian oystercatcher, which has been declining rapidly in recent decades. The project aims to understand the causes of the decline so that we can prioritise conservation actions. We aim to develop the research in such a way that it can be transferred to other species as well.
Education
PhD at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).
MSc in Conservation Science at Imperial College, London.
BSc in Wildlife Conservation at the Durrell Institute of Conservation & Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent.
Current Project and role
Cumulative Human Impact on biRd Populations (CHIRP) with Radboud University where I am a post-doctoral researcher and in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Terrestrial Ecology (NIOO) and the Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology (SOVON).
Project Summary
The project CHIRP (http://chirpscholekster.nl/, in Dutch), focuses on quantifying how human threats accumulate to impact the state and vital rates of an individual. An important theme is linking winter and summer areas to identify carry-over effects. My role within the project is to develop a migratory network meta-population model that incorporates the full-annual cycle of the oystercatcher. The model will incorporate historical data and new data collected by other sub-projects within CHIRP. To date over 10,000 oystercatchers have been colour-ringed and more than 130,000 observations have been recorded on wadertrack.nl. A large effort is also being made to measure reproductive success, particularly for inland breeding birds as part of a wider initiative to conserve meadow nesting birds. These datasets, together with new data collected by two PhD students in the project, will form a core component of the meta-population model. We aim to identify the cumulative and relative impacts of human threats, how they are connected, and thereby determine efficient mitigation and management actions that may reverse the decline of the species.
Google Scholar Profile
ResearchGate Profile
ORC ID