Originally from Lincolnshire, England, I joined the Wildlife Institute as a PhD student in 2015. Before arriving in Beijing I graduated with a BSc in Biochemistry and Biology from Keele University and an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation from Nottingham Trent University. My main interest is the interactions between society and nature and I am particularly interested in the strengths and limitations of the ecosystem services framework as a way to understand these interactions. I am also interested in people living in protected areas and the way in which conservation influences their lives and vice-versa, and am passionate about community based conservation projects and making sustainability and wildlife conservation work for people who live with the effects of human-wildlife conflict and conservation policy every day.
Aside from working on my Mandarin, I am currently designing a PhD project that will hopefully use tools taken from both social and natural sciences to investigate human/non-human interactions in protected areas in China.