Profile

I’m interested in the ecology and evolution of animals; where they live and what makes them the way they are today.

Tenrecs are a weird family of mammals from Madagascar. They have lots of quirky traits including one species which holds the record for most babies produced by any mammal (up to 32 in one litter!) and another species that uses specialised spines on their backs to make sounds (see them in action here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9kJKu4cpXM). Tenrecs look like other more familiar animals such as moles, shrews, hedgehogs and otters. But tenrecs are actually more closely related to elephants and aardvarks than they are to shrews or hedgehogs!

I’m interested in studying why tenrecs have evolved to be so similar to other species which are only very distant relatives. I measure the physical similarities among tenrecs and other mammals and to find out whether animals that look alike also tend to live in similar environments. These questions will help me to figure out why tenrecs have evolved to be so diverse and why they are so unlike their close relatives.

To study physical similarities among tenrecs and other mammals I take measurements and photographs of museum specimens. This means spending a lot of time working with collections of dead animals – but they’re usually kept in some pretty interesting museums so there are lots of perks from traveling between different cities. I’m also hoping to travel to Madagascar next year to study some tenrecs in the wild so that won’t be too bad either…

One of the best things about doing a PhD is that you’re in charge of how to spend your time and free to mix together lots of different activities. If I’m in the Department, a typical day might include reading scientific papers, meeting with other students and staff to discuss new research projects, working as a demonstrator in an undergraduate practical class and analysing my own data using computer statistics programs. I also enjoy writing articles for our department’s blog http://www.ecoevoblog.com/ and a “weird and wonderful animal” series for science spin magazine http://www.sciencespin.com/.

I work in an office with four other PhD students and am lucky to be in a very friendly department where everyone helps with each others’ work and makes plenty of time for trips to the pub. I’m usually in the office from around 9 to 6 and then evenings are spent catching up with friends, swimming or dancing!

This year I’ve also spent a lot of time away from Trinity working at various natural history museums in the UK and USA. Then I spend my days measuring and photographing the skulls, limbs and skins of small mammals while evenings and weekends are free for exploring beautiful cities, or, in the case of New York and London, going to see as many musicals as I possibly can!