I grew up in Bridgend, South Wales where I attended Brynteg School. I studied Biological Sciences at St. Hugh’s College, University of Oxford, and then did a PhD on the population ecology of butterflies at the University of Leeds. I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College, The Natural History Museum (London) and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Panama) before returning to Oxford. I have been Fellow and Tutor in Biology at Brasenose since October 2007. I am also Associate Head of Department and Professor of Ecology in the Department of Biology, where my research group studies the factors maintaining and threatening biodiversity. I have a particular fondness for insects.

I teach in all years of the MBiol course, mostly ecology, entomology and conservation biology, and I supervise students for 4th year Masters research projects. Each year I also run a field course in Tropical Forest Ecology in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.

I am an entomologist, community ecologist and conservation biologist studying the processes that maintain, structure and threaten biodiversity in a range of terrestrial ecosystems, but with a special focus on tropical rainforests.

Areas of current research include approaches to reconcile human land-use with biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the UK and in the tropics; the structure and dynamics of insect food webs and their responses to perturbations; the role of plant pathogens and insect herbivores in structuring and maintaining the high diversity of rainforest plants; and the impact of climate change on interspecific interactions and associated ecosystem functions and services.

Research Group Web Page