Julie Day, BSc (Hons), MSc
College: College of Life and Environmental Sciences
Discipline: Biosciences
Department: Biosciences
Research Centre/Unit: Mammalian Biology
Natural systems are under huge pressure from human activities. My research aims to address how these activities affect species diversity and abundance in order to better understand how to reduce these impacts. Areas I have studied include tropical forests and urban ecology, culminating in several peer-reviewed publications, including Nature. Projects I have worked on have engaged with local county councils and ecological consultant in order to provide practical guidance.
I completed my BSc in Zoology at Imperial College London in 2011. My undergraduate thesis, supervised by Professor Andy Purvis, exploring the effects of human drivers such as deforestation (derived from satellite data) on biodiversity.
I then went on to an MSc in Environmental Technology specialising in Ecological Management at Imperial College London in 2012. This masters covered practical aspects of ecological management, including environmental legislation. My MSc thesis investigated the effect of habitat use on survival and reproduction of wild pheasants in the UK, a joint project with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. For this project I radio-tracked pheasants and used GIS to extract habitat features and analysed habitat preference through compositional analysis.
At the end of 2012, I joined Dr Fiona Mathews and Professor Kevin Gaston at Exeter University. My PhD focuses on the effect of street lighting on biodiveristy, particularly bats and their invertebrate prey. This project is a DEFRA funded project and works in collaboration with the Vincent Wildlife Trust.
More information on my project can be found here.
