Prof Andrew Beckerman
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences
Research Interests: My research group focuses on the impacts of multiple simultaneous threats to ecological communities. We focus on mathematical modelling of communities with 10s-100s of species, addressing key questions about whether the impacts of climate change, environmental change and other stressors, on the dynamics, structure, diversity and functioning of communities, are additive or synergistic. We also work with partners who do experiments, partners with long term data on ecological communities and partners tasked with managing natural resources. We even do experiments ourselves!
Current ACCE Students: Hana Mayall (1˚ supervisor – 2021 Start), Thomas Malpas (2˚ supervisor – 2021 Start) – both Unilever-ACCE partnerships with supervisory team of Beckerman, Childs and Maltby.
Lab website: https://andbeck.github.io/beckslab/
Twitter: @beckerhopper
Prof David Beerling
Current ACCE Students: Michael Kelland, Amy Louise Lewis, Daniel Evans
Prof Grant Bigg
Department of Geography
Research Interests: Marine climate change; remote sensing; Iceberg detection, dynamics and role in thermohaline processes; Large-scale palaeo- and present-day ocean circulation modeling, particularly relating to thermohaline problems and the interface between paleodata and modeling marine climate change; synoptic meteorology; hurricanes; interaction of environmental change with society.
Current ACCE Students: Joseph Molloy
Prof Paul Blackwell
School of Mathematics and Statistics
Research Interests: Statistical ecology, particularly continuous-time modelling of wildlife movement. Bayesian statistics; stochastic modelling; other applications in ecology and environmental science.
Current ACCE Student: Elouise Bray
Prof Terry Burke
Current ACCE Students: Charlotte Bartleet-Cross, Lucy Winder
Prof Roger Butlin
Current ACCE Students: Nathan White, Katherine Elizabeth Hearn
Dr Dylan Childs
School of Biosciences
Research Interests: I am a quantitative ecologist with interests that span fundamental and applied questions. I enjoy working on new problems in diverse systems. Recent projects have focused on the evolution and management of herbicide resistance, statistical analysis of environmental impacts on populations, trait-mediated transient drivers of population dynamics, and trait-dependent density-dependent processes structured populations.
Current ACCE Students: Simran Aujila, Thomas Lewis, Thomas Malpas
Twitter: @dylan_childs
Prof David Edwards
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences
Research Interests: Understanding the impacts of land-use change and wildlife trade on tropical biodiversity, and how to use policy drivers to drive cost-effective conservation.
Current ACCE Students: Chris Bousfield, Emma Hughes, Catherine Finlayson
Prof Katie Field
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences
Research Interests: My research spans 500 million years of land plant evolution, focusing on the interactions between plants and the soil around them, including the myriad of microorganisms that inhabit the below-ground environment. In particular, I am interested in the role of soil fungi in plant nutrition in modern and ancient ecosystems. My research also seeks to improve sustainability in agriculture through the potential application and exploitation of soil microorganisms to improve crop nutrition and reduce chemical inputs.
Current ACCE Student: Alexander Watts
Twitter: @katiefield4
Twitter: @field_lab_UoS
University webpage: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/people/aps-staff/academic/katie-j-field
Prof Robert Freckleton
School of Biosciences
Research Interests: I am broadly interested in ecology and evolutionary biology. My recent students have worked on the structure and conservation of tropical forests, tropical agriculture and modelling the evolution of ecological traits. I would be interested to hear from any prospective students looking to work in these areas.
Current ACCE Students: Catherine Finlayson; Donald Scott
Dr Ellie Harrison
ellie.harrison@sheffield.ac.uk
School of Biosciences
Research Interests: I study how microbes evolve in communities, particularly in interactions with their mobile genetic elements – like plasmids and phages. These are essentially infectious stretches of DNA that move between bacterial hosts and can be both harmful and beneficial.
I am especially interested in the role of these interactions in plant associated bacteria, like Rhizobium and Pseuodomonas, and what this means for the plant. These bacterial have an important role in plant health and thus ecosystem function and sustainable agriculture. Several of my projects address how interactions within microbial communities can be used for more sustainable food production.
Current ACCE Students: Grace Ella Wardell, Charly Pain and Vicki Orr (co-supervising)
Lab webpage: https://www.harrisonlab.co.uk/
Prof Ben Hatchwell
School of Biosciences
Research Interests: My principal research interests are in social evolution and avian ecology. The main approach members of my research group take is to conduct field observations and experiments to test evolutionary and ecological theory. We work on birds, usually drawing on long-term studies of marked individuals. Specific recent interests include: the ecological and demographic factors that promote the evolution of cooperative breeding; kin recognition mechanisms; parental investment strategies; population biology of seabirds; and the ecology of invasive species. Recent study systems include long-tailed tits (UK), monk parakeets (Spain), sociable weavers (South Africa) and rifleman (New Zealand).
Current ACCE Students: First supervisor for Francesca Dawson Pell, Chay Halliwell and second supervisor for Tom Lewis, Finn McCully
Dr Nicola Hemmings
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences
Research Interests: Reproductive biology and behaviour, fertility, sexual selection
Current ACCE Students: Katherine Assersohn, Chloe Mason
https://nicolahemmings.wordpress.com
Twitter: @HemmingsNicola1
Dr Bob Johnston
Department of Archaeology
Research Interests: Holocene palaeoenvironments and landscape histories, especially in the uplands and along coastlines; application of palaeoenvironmental research to present-day landscape conservation and decision-making, primarily in the UK.
Current ACCE Students: Caitlin Nagle, Sally Derrett
Prof Lorraine Maltby
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences
Research Interests: My research is concerned with understanding the impact of anthropogenic activities on freshwater ecosystems and their catchments. A major research aim is to gain a mechanistic understanding of key ecosystem services and the ecological processes that underpin them, and to investigate how they are affected by anthropogenic inputs and activities. The output from this research is used to inform environmental decision making and to influence policy development and implementation Current projects include chemical risk under climate change, spatially-defined ecological risk assessment, chemical risk to ecosystem services and single-use plastics.
Current ACCE Students: Primary supervisor to Thomas Sinclair and second supervisor to Hana Mayall and Thomas Malpas
Dr Nicola Nadeau
School of Biosciences (Ecology and Evolution)
Research Interests: I am interested in evolutionary processes such as adaptation, divergence and speciation. In particular, my research tries to understand what the genetic changes are that bring about evolutionary change and the interplay between genetics, ecology and evolution. My main study organisms are the tropical Heliconius butterflies, and I am particularly interested in evolution in the tropics.
Current ACCE Students: Rory Cooper, Victoria Lloyd, Tien Nguyen
Lab webpage: http://nadeau-lab.group.shef.ac.uk
Twitter: @NicolaNadeau
Prof Gareth Phoenix
School of Biosciences
Research Interests: We study the interactions between plants and the environment, particularly in Arctic, northern boreal and upland (mainly grassland) ecosystems. Our research includes the impacts of climate change (warming, extreme events, snow regime change, precipitation), UV-B radiation and pollution on ecosystem structure and function. We study the impacts on biodiversity, on cycling of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, and the consequences for feedback to climate (ecosystem carbon balance). We also aim to understand how responses observed at the vegetation/ecosystem level are driven by individual plant, root and leaf responses.
Current ACCE Students: Chris Taylor, Jasmine Wakefield
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/people/aps-staff/academic/gareth-phoenix
https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/phoenix-ecology-global-change-lab/
Dr Jonathan Potts
School of Mathematics and Statistics
Research Interests: Mathematical ecology, movement ecology, ecological modelling and model-fitting
Current ACCE Student: Poppy Jeffries
Dr Ann Rowan
Department of Geography
Research Interests: Glacial geomorphology as an archive of palaeoclimate change. Geomorphology and dynamics of mountain glaciers. Resolving uncertainties in glacier–climate modelling.
Current ACCE Student: Josephine Hornsey
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/people/academic-staff/ann-rowan
Prof Jon Slate
Department of Animal & Plant Sciences
Research Interests: My group study the evolutionary genetics of phenotypic variation. We combine cutting-edge genomics tools with data from long-term studies of wild populations to explore the evolution and maintenance of genes under natural selection.
Current ACCE Students: Joanne Stonehouse, Jake Pepper, Mark Sutherland
Twitter: @Jon_Slate
Dr Penelope Watt
School of Biosciences
Research Interests: I am a behavioural ecologist working on personality traits, the genetic basis of behaviour and the impact of stress on behaviour, including transgenerational effects and potential epigenetic mechanisms, in fish and amphibians. My research also focuses on earthworm behaviour, distribution and health with the view to improve soil quality.
Current ACCE Student: Roberta Bray
Prof Charles Wellman
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences
Research Interests: Palaeobiology-in particular palaeobotanical and palynological studies on the origin and early diversification of land plants.
Current ACCE Students: Martha Gibson, Alexander Campbell Ball
Dr Alison Wright
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences
Research Interests: Males and females of many species across the animal kingdom often look and behave very differently. However, the two sexes share an almost identical set of genes. So, how do these remarkable sex differences arise?
Sex chromosomes are the only region of the genome to differ between females and males, and are, therefore, predicted to play key roles in the evolution of sexual dimorphism. My research is centered on understanding the genomic and evolutionary processes underlying sex differences. In particular, I am interested in:
– the origins and turnover of sex chromosome systems
– sex chromosome degeneration
– role of the sex chromosomes in sexual dimorphism
– evolution of gene expression and dosage compensation
– genome evolution and sexual selection.
Current ACCE Students: Primary supervisor: Thea Rogers, Peter Price, Second supervisor: Jake Pepper, Chloe Mason
Lab website: https://www.alisonewright.co.uk
Twitter: @alielw
accedtp.ac.uk 