Current Research Group Members

Dr. Samuel Turvey

Principal Investigator,
Senior Research Fellow
Zoological Society of London
My work encompasses both past and present human impacts on biodiversity, from research into the magnitude and dynamics of extinctions during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, to science-based conservation management of some of the world's most highly threatened species.
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​​Paul Barnes

Ph.D. Student
University College London
Broadly I am interested in human connections with nature and how these interact with conservation policy. I have a particular love for the weird, wonderful, rare, cryptic and highly threatened species of the world and so find my home in Turvey Group. My research is interdisciplinary and I use political ecology and multispecies anthropology to understand how environmental issues and conservation policies play out on the ground in Southeast Asia and Melanesia.

Dr. Jessica Bryant

Postdoctoral Researcher
Zoological Society of London
My interest lies in how we can inform and improve the conservation management of species of extreme rarity -species that are not just Critically Endangered, but persist in single, geographically restricted populations reduced to only a handful of individuals, and constitute those species on the very brink of extinction.  For such species, delays in decision-making can mean the difference between extinction and recovery.
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Dom Bennett

Ph.D. Student
Imperial College London
Dom's PhD research interest lies in understanding whether past evolutionary performance is a predictor of future of evolutionary performance. Are groups that have diversified little -- what we may term 'living fossils' or 'evolutionary distinct species' -- more or less likely to diversify in the future? Such a question is increasingly important for conservation biology where time and resources are limited. Preserving so-called evolutionary dead-ends may be deemed a waste of resources, while protecting evolutionary fuses might be safe-guarding the future biodiversity of life on Earth. To answer these questions, Dom uses a range of computational and phylogenetic approaches. You can find his Google Scholar profile linked here  and his GitHub page here. Prior to joining the Turvey group, Dom did an undergrad in biology and a masters in biodiversity and genomics.

Dr. Nick Crumpton

Postgraduate Research Assistant
Zoological Society of London
Nick wrote his PhD at Selwyn College, Cambridge on osteological correlates of sensory adaptations in European and African small mammals and has since worked at UCL and the Natural History Museum, London. He is interested in convergent evolution, ecomorphology, mammalian evolution, and public outreach. Nick worked with the Turvey group to refine Solenodon taxonomy and evolutionary history, and is currently describing newly discovered small mammal biodiversity from Indonesia. ​He tweets at @lsmonster. Links to Nick's website and Google Scholar can be found here. 

James Hansford

Ph.D. Student
University of Southampton
My work investigates patterns of speciation from the subfossil record and in modern animals. Taxonomy, or the description of species, forms the fundamental units of how we understand the diversity of life on the planet. I am interested in developing knowledge of how and why animal species have gone extinct within the archaeological period to develop a baseline of extinction dynamics before the global impact of humanity in the Anthropocene. My PhD thesis concerns the extinct giant birds of Madagascar, the elephant birds (aepyornithidae). I am investigating the history of their research to untangle their complex taxonomy through morphological analysis to understand their biogeography. Through radiocarbon dating, forensic analysis and statistical models I am uncovering the timing and causes of their extinction and understanding the role of humans in their demise.

Heidi Ma

Ph.D. Student, Project Coordinator
Royal Holloway, University of London
I am interested in investigating the extent to which low-income communities near nature reserves in China utilize and rely on the reserve's resources, and identifying potential sustainable alternative livelihood options. My project aims to gain a robust understanding of community usage and perceptions of local biodiversity and human disturbance within and around nature reserves on Hainan Island, China, and inform conservation management decisions at a broader level. This PhD is partially funded by Arcus Foundation and the Zoological Society of London’s Hainan Gibbon Project (link).
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Lisa Mogensen

Ph.D. Student
University College London​
Lisa is currently conducting research that aims to investigate and quantify the extent to which potential threats are causing direct and indirect mortality to the Critically Endangered Yangtze finless porpoise, found only in the Yangtze River, China. By combining a range of novel field survey techniques and theoretical techniques on existing data sets, this research will provide key data on the spatio-temporal dynamics of threat and porpoise overlap, allowing for better informed conservation decisions and more effective mitigation for the taxon. Further information can be found here. 

Helen Nash

Ph.D. Student
National University of Singapore
Helen's doctoral research is based at the National University of Singapore, through which she is helping to create a more informative picture of the distribution and genetic variability of pangolin species found in Asia. Her research includes community interviews, next-generation genetic sequencing, and radio/GPS tracking. She predominantly works on Sunda and Chinese pangolins (Manis javanica and M. pentadactyla). This all contributes to better informed conservation action planning at both local and international levels.

Jonathan Rio

Ph.D. Student
Imperial College London
My research bridges the gap between vertebrate palaeontology and conservation. I am creating a new evolutionary tree for Crocodylia, a group that includes the living crocodiles, caimans, alligators, gharials and their extinct ancestors extending 80 million years into the fossil record. Using this evolutionary tree, I will explore taxonomic patterns of extinction in Crocodylia and whether certain biological or external factors increase extinction susceptibility. I will apply this knowledge as well as primary data collected from southern Anhui Province, China to explore past and present extinction dynamics in the critically endangered Chinese alligator.

Yifu Wang

​Ph.D. Student
University of Cambridge​
My research focuses on reducing demand for pangolin parts and products through better understanding of the wildlife trade market. I will conduct my research on Hainan Island, China. Learning the motivations for hunting, trading and consuming pangolin could be achieved through social surveys and can reveal the motivation behind the demand market from producer to consumer. Based on this information, I would propose strategies that are eventually effective in reducing the demand for pangolin across China and other parts of Southeast Asia. 
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Lizzie Jones

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Collaborators

Dr Fan Peng-Fei

Professor
​School of Life Sciences,
Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou

Dr Sarah Papworth

Senior Lecturer
​School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London
My research focuses on how the social and physical environment affects individual behaviour, and how this behaviour, can, in turn, alter that environment. I am particularly interested in hunting in the tropics and primate behaviour and always try to pursue research related to conservation. My approach to conservation biology includes human decisions and behaviour as part of a complex ecosystem, thus most of my work is interdisciplinary and has a strong human focus. I combine approaches and theory from ecology, anthropology and psychology. More information can be found here. 

Di Zhang

Ph.D. Student
Center For Nature and Society, Peking University, Beijing
My Ph.D. thesis tries to discuss to what extend are nature reserves currently supporting biodiversity conservation in China, problems they face, and their conservation effectiveness. Through this, we are studying and building a bottom-up, evidence-based conservation outcome evaluation system for nature reserves, starting with case studies in Southwest China. I visited Sam’s group in March 2017 to learn about local ecological knowledge and help analyze interview data collected in Hainan. I am supervised by Prof Zhi Lu at Peking University.

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Alumni

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Postdoctoral Researcher

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PhD Student

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Research Assistant