What does your PhD focus on?

“My PhD looks at the social licence to operate of biodiversity net gain – slightly less specifically, that’s the factors that influence people’s views on an UK conservation policy.”

How has any aspect of your background and identity influenced your approach to research and your scientific journey?

“I am autistic; I’ve found that the traits I’d attribute to autism have mainly been advantages for me going through education, for example, I pick up facts and then can recount them in interviews. There have been a couple of things that have been difficult, though. I really struggle writing drafts; I tend to have an enormous mind map of loads of different things, then I spend months wrangling it into a sensible order for a paper. If I handed it to somebody, they’d go, “what are you doing?”, I think it’s a neurodivergent thing. I’ve not come across many people who have the same processes that I do. It can mean I spend lots of time going down rabbit holes, which isn’t ideal, but I think it’s important to recognize that neurotypical time management skills don’t work for everyone. It’s not just that I’m bad at time management or that I’m bad at getting my ideas on paper. It’s just that those techniques don’t work for me. Once I can fit my ideas together, it’s often really good, partly because of the slightly different way I think.”

What career aspirations do you currently have?

“I am keeping my career options open. It’s either: go into academia – I think I’d really enjoy teaching; I think I’d really enjoy the research side. Or I’d possibly go into the industry, not necessarily as an environmental consultant, but maybe as a biodiversity person within a company, which is a bit corporate but also really interesting. It’s also an opportunity to enact real change, no matter how small it is. And then the other option is to be a kids’ book illustrator.”