Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @Leejiah_D

I am an interdisciplinary conservation scientist with broad interests in the interactions between social and ecological systems, and how we can manage these for the benefit of people and nature.

I am particularly interested in the relationships between communities, their local environment, and conservation actors; and how we can align often competing interests between these stakeholders. My PhD research looked at the ecological and social drivers of conservation conflicts surrounding large carnivores in the Ruaha landscape in Tanzania.

I am also interested in understanding the drivers of human behaviour in relation to a range of conservation and environmental issues. I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Freya St John's Conservation and Human Behaviour group. In this project my research is looking at understanding local people's relationships with protected areas, and how we can apply theories and methods from a range of disciplines to improve our understanding of the drivers of illegal behaviour in protected areas.

Resolving the links between poverty and rule-breaking in a conservation context.

I am working on Dr. Freya St. John's ERC grant that aims to examine the drivers of rule-breaking behaviour in national parks. Using a range of cutting-edge techniques from multiple disciplines the project is investigating how multi-faceted poverty and socio-psychological factors influence rule-breaking behaviour.