Research interests

• Animal Behaviour and Behavioural/Evolutionary Ecology: contest behaviour, sex ratio, mating systems, clutch size, social behaviour (e.g. altruism/spite, sociality, cooperation/cheating, queuing).
• Basic and Applied Ecological Entomology: biology of polyembryonic parasitoids, bethylid wasps, population biology and biological control consequences of intra- and inter-specific interactions, pest control in agroecosystems, mechanisms promoting species diversity, chemical profiles and emissions of wasps, tritrophic effects of host-plant chemistry, Insect nutrition and the commercial-scale production of locusts, crickets and other species, optimising insecticide applications, sub-lethal effects of insecticides on beneficial insects.
• Conservation Ecology: biology and ecology of African vultures, storks, eagles and elephants
• Methodology: biostatistical analysis, principally using Generalized Linear Modelling, chemical approaches to studying behavioural ecology.

Research organisms

Chiefly: Many species of parasitoid wasps and their hosts. Also: Bees, locusts, crickets, mealworms, Drosophila flies, entomophagous nematodes, vultures, eagles, storks, elephants, Humans.

University education

1984-1987 First Class B.Sc. Honours in Biological Sciences (Zoology and Comparative Physiology) and Finals Science Prize. University of Birmingham, UK.

1987-1990 Ph.D. and Diploma of Imperial College. Imperial College at Silwood Park, University of London, UK. Thesis title: Reproductive strategies in parasitic wasps. Supervisor: H.C.J Godfray.

Post-doctoral research posts

January 1991 - July 1993 Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Sciences, University of Leiden, Netherlands. Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, UK.

July 1993 - July 1995 Post-doctoral Research Assistant, Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological Sciences, University of Leiden. Funded by the European Commission 'Human Capital and Mobility' programme.

July 1995 - January 1996 Continuation of  N.E.R.C. Fellowship in Leiden.

February 1996 - June 1996 Research Associate, Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

July 1996 - December 1996 Honorary Research Associate, Department of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. I also taught English part-time during this period at International House, Kraków.

January 1997 - December 1998 Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Aarhus, Denmark. Funded by the European Commission 'Training and Mobility of Researchers' programme ‘Marie Curie Fellowships’.

January 1999 - December 1999 Senior Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Animal Biology and Ecology, University of Granada, Spain. Funded by the European Commission 'Training and Mobility of Researchers' programme ‘Grants to Established Researchers’.

January 2000 - September 2001 Senior Research Fellow in Biological Sciences, Ecology Centre, University of Sunderland, UK. Funded by the University of Sunderland.

Previous posts at the University of Nottingham (2001-2021):

I was appointed as Lecturer in Animal Population Biology from 1^st October 2001.

I was promoted to Associate Professor (= Senior Lecturer) from 1^st August 2005.

I was promoted to Reader from 1^st August 2011.

I was appointed to my additional post as Warden of Bonington Hall from 1^st January 2004 and reappointed, following University restructuring, to the role of Warden of the Bonington Hall Cluster, from 13^th August 2011. The role ceases on 1^st January 2021.

I moved from Nottingham to Helsinki in April 2021.

Additional positions

Visiting Professorship, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland (1^st October – 21^st December 2020)

Visiting Scientist, Department of Entomology, University of Milan, Italy (2021)

Advanced Fellow, Hebrew University Institute of Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, Israel (2022)

Publications

I have written more than 180 publications; these are empirical (laboratory and field), modelling, comparative, review, critique, comment, correspondence and book review articles. I have edited three books and two journal special issues. 

A list of my publications and citation metrics can be found here (Google scholar profile): http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?hl=en&user=RO3KGCgAAAAJ

Teaching qualifications

RSA Cambridge ‘Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults’, Grade B (i.e. top 10%), awarded in Kraków, Poland, August 1996 and have taught English for four months part-time (1996).

Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (pass with commendation), University of Nottingham (2008). As part of this, my Group Project was on ‘Statistics Teaching across the University’ and my Individual Project was on ‘Virtually Mathematics-free Statistics.

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (since 2015)