Professional summary
Research Interests
My work focuses on bridging the gap between research scientists and information technology experts.
Based within the Biological Records Centre (BRC) I work with statistical experts to develop methods for analysing species occurrence data and work to make these methods available to other academics and practitioners. I also work to make existing datasets more accessible by developing websites that can be used to interact with data.
Brief CV
2012-present: Computational Ecologist, CEH – Biological Records Centre
2012 June-August: Expedition Scientist, Honduras.
2008-2012: PhD, University of Exeter. 'The Social Structure, Ecology and Pathogens of Bats in the UK'. My thesis is available on figshare.
2004-2008: BSc Ecology, Durham University
R Code
The vast majority of my work is undertaken in the R programming language and when circumstances allow I place this code on github to share with others. Here is a selection of these code repositories and shiny apps
Packages
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rnbn - Access to data held by the National Biodiversity Network (NBN, www.nbn.org.uk). A part of the ROpenSci collection of packages.
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sparta - Methods used to analyse trends in unstructured occurrence datasets such as those collected by volunteer recording schemes.
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zoon - Reproducible and remixable species distribution modelling.
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BRCindicators - This small package contains a number of functions used to create biodiversity indicators.
Other code
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#mygbif - An entry to the GBIF innovation competitiion - Finalist
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shiny_geolocation - A demonstration of how geolocation from a smartphone or PC can be used in a shiny app
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NatureNearMe - A proof of concept to serve wildlife data from the NBN Gateway through twitter
Shiny apps
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Nature's Postcodes - A shiny app demonstrating how data in the NBN is distributed by UK postcodes.
Technology projects
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'Project Erebus' - This project seeks to combine remote control aircraft technology, autonomous flight control, and recent advances in ultrasound detectors to create an automated aireal bat surveying tool.
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KesCam - With colleagues at CEH we installed two web cameras on a kestrel nesting box.
Selected Presentations
The following playlist contains four presentations:
- Persepectives on Technology for Biological Recording - Suffolk Naturalist Society
- Bats, Bones, Phones and Drones - Nature Live, London Natural History Museum
- How to Connect Your Smartphone to a Bat Detector - Guest video for Bat Conservation Trust
- #myGBIF; One Hashtag, infinite possibilities - Finalist in GBIF innovation competition
Panels, committees and memberships
- Member of the British Ecological Society
- Member of the NBN User group
- Member of the British Ecological Society
- Member of the NBN User group