Profile

I’m a 25 year old researcher, currently living in Canterbury with two other PhD students. I love spending my time outside, going for walks in the local nature reserve, going for sea swims 🌊 and having coffee ☕ with friends. I’m originally from Farnham, just south of London, where my parents and our dog Bertie are still based.

I’ve spent a lot of the past few years volunteering. Four years ago I trained to be a marine mammal medic for stranded seals, whales 🐳 and dolphins 🐬 (and I’m still on call now)! I’ve also volunteered with a turtle 🐢 conservation charity in Cyprus and at a wildlife hospital, mainly caring for sick and injured hedgehogs 🦔.

My pronouns are she/her ♀️.

My work focuses on preventing the extinction of endangered lizards on two tropical islands 🏝️: Mauritius and Guam.

Mauritius is an island in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, with very high biodiversity and lots of endemic species – this means there are animals that are only found in Mauritius. Most of these are only found on tiny islands surrounding the main island of Mauritius, which are highly at risk because there are so few of them. One of these is the lesser night gecko. My research is looking at the best ways to conserve them including a plan to move them into a nature reserve on another island in Mauritius.

Guam is an island in the Pacific ocean, next to the Mariana trench. It is also home to many unique species however many of these went extinct when the Brown Tree Snake was accidentally introduced. One of these is the Guam Kingfisher🐦, a bird species that is now only found in captivity. I am part of a team of researchers hoping to reintroduce the bird to a small island in the lagoon south of Guam, however this island is home to many species of lizards which the kingfisher might eat. My part of the research is to monitor the lizards and the effect of the kingfisher on them.