Professional summary
Jenna Lawson is a Biodiversity Scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), specialising in the use of emerging technologies to generate robust, decision-relevant biodiversity data that supports more effective conservation outcomes.
Her work spans terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Jenna has developed monitoring hardware and associated AI and analysis pipelines across bioacoustics, robotics and insect-camera systems and works across a range of programmes that apply these technologies on the ground to support scalable biodiversity monitoring and solve real world challenges. Jenna is currently leading a new programme of work developing a framework for acoustics monitoring across UK freshwater and coastal ecosystems and is supporting numerous projects across the UK and overseas to deploy and generate ecological insights from insect camera and acoustic systems.
Jenna leads the Innovate for Nature programme, a UK government funded global initiative working with governments, scientists, NGOs, and international partners to understand the opportunities, challenges, and needs in accessing and using biodiversity monitoring technology and big data. She is developing and implementing recommendations and frameworks that support more effective, equitable, and scalable conservation outcomes, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Jenna is passionate about outreach and exploring creative approaches, including art and music, to communicate biodiversity data and engage broader audiences
Lawson, Jenna & Farinha, André & Romanello, Luca & Pang, Oscar & Zufferey, Raphael & Kovac, Mirko. (2023). Use of an unmanned aerial-aquatic vehicle for acoustic sensing in freshwater ecosystems. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation. 10.1002/rse2.373.
Lawson, J., Rizos, G. E., Jasinghe, D., Whitworth, A., Schuller, B. W., & Banks‐Leite, C. (2023). Automated acoustic detection of geoffroy's spider monkey highlights tipping points of human disturbance. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 290(1995). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2473
Lawson, J., Whitworth, A., Banks-Leite, C. (2022) Soundscapes show disruption across the diel cycle in human modified tropical landscapes" Ecological indicators 144 doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.109413
*Rizos, G., *Lawson, J., Han, Z., Butler, D., Rosindell, J., Mikolajczyk, K., Banks-Leite, C., Schuller, B.W. (2021) Multi-Attentive Detection of the Spider Monkey Whinny in the (Actual) Wild. Proc. Interspeech 2021, 471-475, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2021-1969
Sethi, Sarab & Bick, Avery & Chen, Ming-Yuan & Crouzeilles, Renato & Hillier, Ben & Lawson, Jenna & Lee, Chia-Yun & Liu, Shiah-Hao & Parruco, Celso & Rosten, Carolyn & Somveille, Marius & Tuanmu, Mao-Ning & Banks-Leite, Cristina. (2023). Automatic vocalisation detection delivers reliable, multi-faceted, and global avian biodiversity monitoring. 10.1101/2023.09.14.557670.
Pringle, S., Dallimer, M., Goddard, M.A. et al. Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age. Nat Ecol Evol 9, 1031–1042 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02704-9
A. Farinha, L. Romanello, R. Zufferey, J. Lawson, S. F. Armanini and M. Kovac, "SailMAV: Water-Surface Locomotion and Biodiversity Monitoring," in IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics, vol. 2, pp. 208-229, 2025, doi: 10.1109/TFR.2025.3547309
Bevan, P.A., Banks-Leite, C., Kovac, M., Lawson, J., Picinali, L. and Sethi, S.S. (2026), Robotics-assisted acoustic surveys could deliver reliable, landscape-level biodiversity insights. Remote Sens Ecol Conserv, 12: 260-274. https://doi.org/10.1002/rse2.70037