People

See here for current opportunities to join the team.

The Team

Tim Newbold

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Tim is the Principal Investigator of the Global Biodiversity Change group at UCL. He is interested in understanding and predicting global biodiversity changes, and the consequences of biodiversity changes for human societies. Email Tim.

Tadhg Carroll (2024 - )

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Tadhg is a post-doc working on our project investigating interactive effects of climate change and land use on biodiversity globally Email Tadhg.

Silvia Ceausu (2020 - )

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Silvia is working on the GCRF-funded TRADE Hub, investigating the impacts of global trade on biodiversity. Email Silvia.

Charlie Outhwaite (2018 - )

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Charlie is working on our NERC-funded GLITRS Project, investigating the drivers and consequences of insect biodiversity declines. Email Charlie.

Lizzie Boakes (2018 - )

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Lizzie works on the TRADE Hub and BIOTA Project, investigating the impacts of global trade on biodiversity. Email Lizzie.

Rodolfo Assis Magalhães (2023 - )

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Rodolfo is doing a PhD with me and Marcus Rowcliffe, funded by a UCL Graduate Research Scholarship, investigating the impact of land use and climate change on biodiversity and activity patterns in South American mammals. Email Rodolfo.

Daan Scheepens (2023 - )

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Daan is doing a PhD with me and Robin Freeman, funded by the London NERC DTP, exploring how biodiversity change will impact the provision of pollination and pest control services. Email Daan.

Chloe Metcalfe (2020 - )

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Chloe is doing a PhD Project supervised also by Terry Dawson, funded by the London NERC DTP, investigating the effectiveness of protected areas. Email Chloe.

Romuald Tcheutchoua (2022 - )

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Romuald is doing a PhD on pest control by wasps in maize agroecosystems in Cameroon, supervsised mainly by Seirian Sumner. Email Romuald.

Grace Moore (2023 - )

Grace is doing a PhD on rewilding, mainly with Gemma Harvey at Queen Mary. Email Grace.

Justin Isip (2022 - )

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Justin is doing his PhD, mostly with Andy Purvis at the Natural History Museum, investigating how human activities are changing the structure of insect communities. Email Justin.

Carolina Campos Santos (2021 - )

Carolina is doing a PhD, working mainly with Carole Dalin, in the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources. Carolina is developing a composite indicator of biodiversity change. Email Carolina.

Shunxiang Fan (2023 - )

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Sunxiang is a visiting PhD student from China Agricultural University, based with us for a year researching the impacts of land use and atmospheric nitrogen deposition on biodiversity.

Isabelle Leconche (2024 - )

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Isabelle is completing her masters project on the role of deforestation in mediating interactive effects of climate change and land use on biodiversity.

Riley Beskeen (2024 - )

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Riley is doing a masters project on interactive effects of climate change and urbanization on insect biodiversity.

Shuai Yue (2024 - )

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Shuai is completing his masters project on land-use-climate interactions and insect biodiversity.

Maria Klimczak (2023 - )

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Maria is doing a masters project with Silvia investigating how field size influences levels of biodiversity within agriculture.

Shrishti Sinha (2023 - )

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Shrishti is a visiting masters student from the BITS Pilani in India, contributing to our efforts to predict the impacts of land-use change and climate change on insect biodiversity.

Eva Lyu (2023 - )

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Eva is a UCL student who undertook a summer research project with us in 2023, and has continued to work on this project, investigating the impacts of climate change and land use on insect species.

▼ Former Team Members (click to expand) ▼

Adrienne Etard (2018 - 2023)

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Adrienne completed a Royal Society-funded PhD, investigating how species' traits influence their responses to climate and land-use change. She then conducted post-doctoral research with the TRADE Hub, investigating the risks to global trade from biodiversity loss.

Gonzalo Albadejo Robles (2018 - 2023)

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Gonzalo completed a PhD, investigating land use and climate impacts on vertebrate biodiversity, and then continued with this work in a post-doctoral position, as part of my land use, climate change and biodiversity project.

Tania Barychka (2020 - 2022)

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Tania worked on our Leverhulme-funded project combining the Madingley General Ecosystem Model with Ecological Neutral Theory to predict the impacts of human activities on the world's terrestrial ecosystems.

Abbie Chapman (2018 - 2022)

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Abbie worked on the GCRF-funded SENTINEL Project, investigating biodiversity-agriculture trade-offs in Zambia, Ethiopia and Ghana. Email Abbie.

Georgina Adams (2017 - 2022)

Georgina worked on the SENTINEL Project, developing scenarios of future biodiversity change in Zambia, Ghana and Ethiopia, and previously also worked on our Dynamics of African Ecosystems Project.

Joe Millard (2018-2021)

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Joe did a PhD, together with Robin Freeman at ZSL and Richard Gregory at RSPB, funded by the London NERC DTP, investigating how climate and land use influence pollinator communities.

Jessica Williams (2017 - 2021)

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Jess did a Royal Society-funded PhD, studying how climate modifies the response of biodiversity to land use.

Rory Gibb (2017 - 2020)

Rory did a PhD, mainly working with Kate Jones, investigating the effect of environmental change on disease risk.

Guilherme Ferreira (2018 - 2019)

I helped to supervise Gee for the last few months of his PhD project, investigating the effectiveness of protected areas in conserving mammal populations in Brazil. Gee passed his viva in July 2019, and his now doing a post-doc at UCL working on the Biome Health Project with Kate Jones.

Jianqiao Zhao (2022 - 2023)

Jianqiao was a visiting PhD student from Tsinghua University, based with us for a year to investigate the impacts of land-use changes on biodiversity in agricultural systems and protected areas.

Chenchen Ding (2022 - 2023)

Chenchen was a visiting PhD student from Beijing Normal University, based with us for a year researching the vulnerability to heatwaves of birds in arid environments.

Aubane Carre de Malberg (2023)

Aubane did a masters project with Gonzalo, investigating human impacts on island biodiversity.

Anna Klein (2023)

Anna visited from the Free University of Amsterdam, to conduct a masters research project, investigating how hemipteran (bugs) and dipteran (flies) pest predators respond to land use.

Wenbo Chen (2023)

Wenbo did a masters project on insect declines with Charlie.

Kyra Smith (2022)

Kyra undertook a visiting masters project with us (visting from the University of Bologna), working with Tim and Charlie, investigating differences in responses of different insect groups to climate change and land use. We are now working to publish Kyra's research.

Sharif Khalid (2022 - 2023)

Sharif did his masters project with Adrienne and Tim, investigating the impacts of climate change and land use on vertebrate pollinators and pest predators.

Rudai (Fred) Zan (2023)

Fred did a masters project with Tim, investigating how land-use history shapes biodiversity responses to current land-use differences.

Ciara Duggan (2022)

Ciara worked mainly with Jess Williams, exploring the interacting impacts of climate change and land use on zoonotic disease hosts.

Holly Souza-Newman (2021 - 2022)

Holly conducted her masters project in the group, investigating the impacts of land use on species that control agricultural pests.

Lauren Cocker (2022)

Lauren undertook a masters project with Charlie, investigating trends in UK ladybirds.

Zhen (Lucia) Tan (2022)

Lucia did her masters project with Charlie, investigating UK insect trends.

Kin Nok (Stanley) Chan (2022)

Stanley did a masters project with Tim, investigating how biodiversity responds to forest cover loss in different biomes of the world.

Dingding Liu (2021)

Dingding did a masters project with Lizzie, exploring the social impacts of Chinese imports of agricultural commodities.

Sam Bengtsson-Gartner (2020 - 2021)

Sam did a masters project with Silvia, investigating alignment of stakeholder and researcher interests in ecosystem services.

Charlotte Benham

Charlotte did a masters project with Charlie Outhwaite, investigating the impact of landscape natural habitat availability on agricultural biodiversity.

Bjorn Franke

Bjorn did a masters project with Georgina Adams, investigating the effect of animal migrations on ecosystem structure using the Madingley Model.

James Hatry

James did a masters project with Lizzie Boakes, looking at the effect of international trade on biodiversity and social indicators.

Tasmin Alexander (2020)

Tasmin did a masters project, investigating the impact of large-scale land acquisitions on biodiversity.

Peter McCann (2019 - 2020)

Peter did a masters project, investigating the interactions between biodiversity, agriculture and global commodity trade. We are preparing Peter's work for publication.

Rhiannon Osborne-Tonner (2019 - 2020)

Rhiannon did a masters project, looking at how vertebrate diets influence their response to land-use change. Rhiannon's work contributed to a paper we are preparing on species' responses to land-use change.

Susie Cramp (2018 - 2019)

Susie did a masters research project, exploring impacts of land use on the phylogenetic diversity of vertebrates. Susie is now doing a PhD at the University of Western Australia.

Diego Garcia-Vega (2017-2018)

Diego did a masters research project, investigating the impact of land-use change on biodiversity in the world's drylands. Diego's work was published as a paper in Biodiversity & Conservation. Since graduating Diego has done internships with the United Nations, and is now completing another masters degree at Sciences Po in Paris.

James Johnston (2019)

James did an masters project, investigating the impacts of cocoa on tropical biodiversity. James will soon be starting a PhD project at Cambridge University.

Georgie Hislop (2019)

Georgie did a masters project, working on the SENTINEL Project.

Philippa Oppenheimer (2019)

Philippa did a masters project, investigating how biodiversity responses to land use differ among the biomes of the world. Philippa's work formed part of a paper we published in Nature Ecology & Evolution

Louise Sykes (2018)

Lou did a masters research project, exploring whether rare and common species respond differently to land use. Lou's work was published as a paper in Conservation Biology. Lou is now working for the Hampshire Wildlife Trust.

Robyn Kinnersley (2018)

Robyn did a masters research project, investigating responses of European pollinator species to land use. Robyn's work contributed to a paper just accepted for publication.

Sophie Morrill (2017)

Sophie did a masters project with me, exploring how the ecological traits of reptile species influence their responses to land use. Sophie's work contributed to a paper we published in Global Ecology & Biogeography. Sophie now develops Natural History television programmes.

Rungtip Wonglersak (2016)

Rungtip did a masters research project investigating the effects of climate change on ecosystems using the Madingley Model. Rungtip is currently doing a PhD joint between the University of Southampton and the Natural History Museum.

Laura Bentley (2015)

Laura did an internship at UNEP-WCMC, using the PREDICTS Project data to investigate whether responses of species to land use vary depending on trophic level. Laura's work contributed to a paper we published in Functional Ecology. Laura is now doing a PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Martin Jung (2014)

While at UNEP-WCMC, I co-supervised Martin's masters project at the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at Copenhagen University. He compared the estimates of the effects of land use made by the models of the PREDICTS Project with new data he collected in Kenya and Tanzania. Martin's work was published as a paper in Animal Conservation. Martin completed a PhD at the University of Sussex, and is now working as a post-doctoral researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna.

Katie Threadgill (2014)

Katie did an internship at UNEP-WCMC, collating data on biodiversity before and after a land-use change. Katie is now doing a PhD in York University

Rebecca Senior (2013)

Rebecca did an extended internship at UNEP-WCMC, working on various projects. Rebecca's work contributed to the first global PREDICTS paper. Rebecca completed a PhD at Sheffield University, and is now a post-doctoral researcher at Princeton University.

Edwin Pynegar (2012)

Edwin did an internship at UNEP-WCMC, in which he collected data with which to evaluate the predictions of the The Madingley Model and contributed to the early data collection for the PREDICTS Project. Edwin contributed to the first PREDICTS paper, on land-use responses of tropical forest species. Edwin completed a PhD at Bangor University, and is now working at the Fundación Natura Bolivia NGO.

Abigayil Blandon (2012)

Abigayil did an internship at UNEP-WCMC, contributing to the early data collection of the PREDICTS Project. Abigayil contributed to the first PREDICTS paper, on land-use responses of tropical forest species. Abigayil spent some time working for the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee, completed a masters at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and now works as a seafood policy officer at WWF-UK.

Robert Wilson (2011)

While at UNEP-WCMC, I supervised Robert's masters project with the now-discontinued Mathematics in the Living Environment (MILE) Programme at the University of York. Robert's project investigated spatial patterns in the average body mass of amphibian communities in Europe. Robert completed a PhD and some post-doctoral reseach at the University of Strathclyde and is now working at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory.

External Collaborators

Andy Purvis

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Andy was the Principal Investaigator of the PREDICTS Project, on which I used to work full time. We are both now co-investigators on the GLITRS project on insect declines. Andy is based at the Natural History Museum in London.

Carole Dalin

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Carole was a co-investigator on the BIOTA Project, investigating interactions between biodiversity change and agriculture. Carole is based at UCL's Institute for Sustainable Resources.

Jeremy Kerr

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Jeremy and I have collaborated for a few years, on a project investigating the impacts of land-use change and climate change on bumblebee biodiversity in North America and Europe.

Peter Soroye

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Peter and I have been collaborating on the bumblebees project with Jeremy Kerr.

Ben Collen

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Ben was the Principal Investigator on the Dynamics of African Ecosystems Project, which I am now leading. Tragically, Ben died of bone cancer in May 2018. Please consider making a donation for research on this under-studied form of cancer.

Nick Isaac

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Nick leads the Global Insect Threat-Response Synthesis (GLITRS) Project, which is investigating the drivers and consequences of global insect declines.

Barbara Adolph

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Barbara led the SENTINEL Project, which explored the social and environmental trade-offs of agriculture in Zambia, Ethiopia and Ghana. We are currently finishing up a few outputs from this project.

Neil Burgess

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Neil leads the TRADE Hub, which is exploring the environmental impacts of international trade.

James Rosindell

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James leads a project, in which we are combining the strengths of Ecological Neutral Theory and the Madingley Model, to make better predictions of global biodiversity change. James is based at Imperial College London.

Mike Harfoot

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Mike and I collaborate on the Madingley Model, and also on the TRADE Hub. Mike is based at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge.

Sam Hill

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Sam and I collaborate together on the PREDICTS Project, and on the TRADE Hub. Sam is based at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge.

Derek Tittensor

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Derek and I collaborate on the development of the Madingley Model. Derek is based at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.