Francesca Mancini
My research focuses on monitoring biodiversity change and identifying the drivers of biodiversity loss. During my current role I have worked on a range of projects including monitoring the status of pollinating insects in the UK, designing an indicator of habitat connectivity for England and quantifying the impact of agrochemicals on invertebrate populations. Much of my research focuses on developing modelling frameworks to realise the potential of citizen science data to monitor the status of UK biodiversity, such as models that integrate data from multiple sources to produce unified trends of species distributions.
I have a background in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary ecology. During my PhD at the University of Aberdeen I worked closely with NatureScot, local businesses and stakeholders to find sustainable solutions for the management of marine wildlife tourism in Scotland. During this time I developed a great interest in applied research and translating my research into outputs that can be used by practitioners and policy makers. Although challenging, this effort is crucial in achieving conservation goals and make a real impact on nature and people, which is why I started a NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellowship that aims to close the gap between advances in data science made by the scientific community and the organisations that are tasked with the job of nature recovery on the ground. I recently joined the BES English Policy Group to learn more about the English environmental policy landscape and actively contribute to driving policy changes by promoting the knowledge generated by ecological science.