I did a BSc (1st Class Hons) in marine biology with Bangor University in 1996, which followed by a PhD in mangrove ecology with Liverpool University in 2001. My postdoctoral career took me through a two year research fellowship with Lisbon University in Portugal, studying crustacean recruitment dynamics, a one year postdoc with Bangor University on phytoplankton research, and a 3 year postdoctoral fellowship with Southampton University, in which I used intertidal snails and biofilms to test model predictions related to resource distribution and habitat fragmentation. I returned to Bangor University in 2009 for a Research Lectureship, which in January 2013 led to a permanent lectureship and later a Senior Lectureship with the School of Ocean Sciences.
I am an experimental ecologist with particular interests in the ecological functioning and ecosystem services of coastal salt marshes, mangroves and seagrasses. My research focuses particularly on regulators of landscape-scale functioning, such as examining what determines the delivery of natural coastal protection and carbon sequestration by marshes and mangroves, and explaining and predicting long- and medium-term changes in marsh and mangrove area cover. I have a strong interest in the human interactions with coastal wetlands, including wellbeing associations and how ecosystem management impacts on ecosystem service delivery. My work includes fundamental experimentation with ecosystem simulations in the field and hydrological flumes, use of historical data, records and systematic observations for understanding long-term processes in coastal systems.
