About me

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Liverpool, United Kingdom
I am interested in how we can use DNA sequences to understand biodiversity – how do we recognise species, and how are species related at taxonomic, ecological and geographic levels? My passion for biodiversity research has led me from the world’s largest natural history collection - Natural History Museum, London, where I completed my MSc, to the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario - global centre for the international Barcode of Life, as a PhD student, and to the hyper-diverse tropics of Southeast Asia. The tropics will be the first regions to experience historically unprecedented climates and this will happen within the next decade. Consequently my recent research has focussed on understanding the effects of urbanisation and climate change on tropical and subtropical biodiversity - encompassing both species richness and ecological integrity across a diversity of taxonomic groups.

Oct 30, 2016

Research Updates October 2016

On 13 October a poster was presented in our absence at the Setiu Wetlands Scientific Expedition Symposium in Terengganu, Malaysia.


Four graduate students from lab at the University of Malaya had their convocation ceremony on the weekend of 15/16 October. Very proud of my former students.


On 19 October I presented an invited seminar on DNA barcoding at Capital Normal University in Beijing


Also on 19 October the latest paper in our collaboration with Naresuan University, Thailand came online:

Unexpected diversity of sandflies (Diptera: Psychodidae) in tourist caves in Northern Thailand
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24701394.2016.1214728

The first author of this paper is Jedsada Sukantamala who was an intern in my lab at the University of Malaya during the summer of 2016.