Profile

In my research, I’m really interested in how different animals are coping with climate change through changing their behaviour, and whether or not this is helping them to adapt. During my PhD studies I worked on dormice, which are super cute and are an endangered species here in the UK, and I’ve also worked on ground squirrels in Canada (like the squirrels we have in the UK, but they don’t climb trees!) – basically I really like small, furry animals :). I’m also really interested in hibernation (where animals sleep for the whole winter) – it’s a fascinating process that we don’t completely know how it works!

In my teaching, I like teaching animal behaviour and animal welfare, with a particular focus on wild animals – why do wild animals act the way they do, and how can we make sure that our actions aren’t harming them. There’s lots of questions that are still to be answered in these fields, which make them a really exciting field to be working in!

My days change a lot depending on my teaching schedule – it’s very different to teaching in schools, as students will focus on one or two topics only for a few weeks, but have lots of classes on that topic and work to do for it. When I’m teaching, I will teach for several hours in the morning, and then mark some of the assignments our students have to turn in regularly to check that they are understanding what we are teaching them. There are often research talks at lunchtime, so I often go to one of those to find out what exciting research other people in the University are doing. In the afternoons I often have meetings with students, and work on my research a bit before heading home around 5pm.