Staff profile

I am a PhD student supervised by Professor Stephen Willis here at Durham, and Dr. Katherine Simpson at the University of Glasgow. My PhD project is part of the NETGAIN doctoral focal award, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). I will be assessing the potential for the recently mandated Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) funding mechanism to align with Durham's Local Nature Recovery Strategy. In part, this will involve assessing the economic viability of BNG funding to support landowner management for local conservation goals in County Durham. Additionally, I will be monitoring newly designated sites (with acoustic, camera trapping, and drone-collected data) to document changes and assess potential in achieving conservation benefits for locally important species assemblages despite BNGs broad and simplistic metrics. Project partners include Jim Cokill (Durham Wildlife Trust), Stuart Priestly (Durham County Council), and Dr. Thomas Smart (Natural England). 

I have research experience across disciplines within geography, environmental science and ecology. Most recently, I completed my MSc research at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery in Oxford exploring eco-acoustics for monitoring soil ecosystem health across a management gradient of pasture grassland. I also have experience in social research, particularly in my study of the socio-economic motivations of conventional farmers in agri-environmental scheme uptake. Practically, I am interested in how to best align existing policy and funding frameworks with local socio-ecological needs and priorities. Conceptually, I am interested in how environmental governance manifests ecologically, and how to monitor and interpret the ecological implications of policy and management decisions on a local level.

• Ecosystem health monitoring
• Anthropogenic disturbance and management
• Environmental policy and governance