Role: Postdoctoral Researcher in biodiversity monitoring
School: Agriculture, Policy and Development
Department: Sustainable Land Management
Theme: Agriculture, Food and Health
Expertise: My main research interests lie in biodiversity and ecology particularly plant-insect interactions in the tropics. My research has focused on human-modified systems, to try to understand our impacts on the environment and to find sustainable solutions that protect biodiversity and support people.
About me: I joined the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development as a postdoctoral researcher in 2019 to work on the BioSmart project (https://research.reading.ac.uk/biosmartamazonia/). This interdisciplinary and collaborative project aimed to explore and understand reasons behind low adoption rates of silvopastoral practices on farmlands in Caquetá, Colombia. For my part, I worked closely with partners from the Universidad de la Amazonia and Alliance Bioversity & CIAT to study the impacts of this form of farming on invertebrate diversity. I really enjoyed working in Colombia and seek opportunities to continue research there and throughout the tropics. As part of my current role at Reading, I also work on European biodiversity projects including the Safeguard and MAMBO projects. For these, I have been involved in stakeholder engagement, understanding user needs and facilitating co-design of biodiversity monitoring technology. Prior to coming to Reading, I carried out my PhD at Griffith University in Australia for which I studied the impacts of rainforest fragmentation on insect herbivory at the SAFE project in Malaysian Borneo.
Weblink: https://www.reading.ac.uk/sustainable-land-management/our-staff/lois-kinneen
Contact
