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Meet the team
22 September 2011
Dr David Gibbons, Head of the Conservation Science Department, develops the strategic direction for the RSPB's science, making it relevant to the Society's needs, thus ensuring that its conservation policies and practices are underpinned by sound science.
Prof Rhys Green, Principal Research Biologist and Honorary Professor of Conservation Science, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, current research addresses the management of threatened bird species, responses of bird distribution and abundance to climatic change, effects of toxic environmental pollution on birds and the effect of global agricultural development on biodiversity. Projects include the conservation of corncrake and stone curlew in the UK and of Jerdon's courser and vultures in India, measurement of effects of climatic change on birds in Europe and southern Africa, the effects of habitat patchiness and climatic change on Dartford and Cetti's warblers, reintroduction of corncrakes to England and comparison of the consequences for global biodiversity conservation of the promotion of low or high yield farming.
Dr Juliet Vickery, Head of International Research, along with the international research team collaborates with Birdlife Partners, on research and monitoring of globally threatened and other bird species, and Important Bird Areas. Regional or continental scale projects are also undertaken in relation to issues such as climate and land use change, efficacy of site protection and impact of invasive species.
Dr Guy Anderson, Principal Research Manager, leads the Conservation Science department's administrative and technical teams, providing support for all research staff. He monitors the department's finances and leads on recruiting field staff and developing science communications.
Dr Richard Bradbury, Head of the Environmental Research, and the environmental research team work on a range of cross-cutting issues affecting birds, with a particular focus on climate change impacts, mitigation and adaptation, and understanding the implications of an ecosystem service agenda for biodiversity conservation. A major role of the team is to provide scientific support to underpin the Society's casework, currently dominated by impacts of renewable energy development.
Dr Will Peach, Head of the Research Delivery Section, leads on research into farmland birds and UK regional support outside of Scotland. In recent years, the team has focused on the development of conservation solutions for farmland birds and on assessing the effectiveness of agri-environment schemes across the UK.
Dr Richard Gregory, Head of Species Monitoring and Research, is responsible for managing a wide range of projects and initiatives from bird monitoring and indicators to autecological studies of individual priority bird species, most often working with partner organisations. These include large-scale generic and single species bird surveys, which the team uses with other data to produce biodiversity indicators at national, UK, EU and European levels, and an annual status report, The State of the UK's Birds. Research interests of the team include biodiversity monitoring and indicators, climatic change impacts, setting conservation priorities, autecological studies around uplands, wetlands, woodlands, wet grassland, and ecological processes, such as predation and climatic change.
Prof Jeremy Wilson, Head of Scottish Research, and the team takes a UK-wide lead on seabird research and research in upland landscapes. The current programme includes studies of the ecological and demographic causes of decline of a wide range of species of high conservation concern including Slavonian grebe, common scoter, curlew, whimbrel, herring gull, ring ouzel and chough, as well as wider studies of the impacts of windfarm development on upland breeding birds, the ecology of woodland grouse, and the deployment of cutting-edge bird-tagging technologies to characterise the at-sea foraging behaviour of breeding seabirds. Jeremy also holds an Honorary Chair at the University of Stirling where current collaborations include PhD studies on grassland management for lapwings and the ecology of pine martens in native pinewoods.
Jo Gilbert, Head of Reserves Ecology department at the RSPB's UK headquarters, the role of which is to provide the science to underpin RSPB's reserves acquisition and management. This involves contributing to reserves management planning, advising on and undertaking biological monitoring and research on reserves, and providing ecological advice to site managers and others.
Doug Gilbert, Head of Reserves Ecology, Scotland. Leads our team of ecologists providing science to underpin the acquisition and management of the RSPB's extensive network of reserves in Scotland.
Dr Malcolm Ausden, Manages the Reserves Survey and Monitoring Team with the Reserves Ecology department, helps produce guidance on monitoring and survey work on reserves, and disseminates the results of the conservation work that takes place on our reserve network.
Ellen Wilson, Head of the Conservation Data Management Unit, which ensures that our conservation datasets and their users are well looked-after.