CV

September 2025 –  current: Assistant professor at UCD

• Ad Astra Fellow at the School of Agriculture and Food Science

• Assistant professor in wildlife health and land use

January 2025 – August 2025: Postdoc researcher at UCD (level 2)

• Project: Moving badgers: Studying badger movement and interaction rate with both co-specifics and cattle to unravel their role in the spread of bovine tuberculosis across Irish ecosystems. (Jan 2025 - Dec 2026

• Project: DeerImpact: Assessing the impact of deer in Irish forest ecosystems to inform evidence-based deer management and policy (Sep 2024 – Sep 2028).

January 2023 – December 2024: Postdoc researcher at UCD (level 2)

• Project: Towards 2030: filling the wildlife ecology gap in the bTB eradication strategy by modelling badger abundance, health, and sett distribution, using recent advances in Bayesian modelling (Jan 2023 – Dec 2024).

• Project: BioDEERversity: Deer impact on biodiversity: linking soil plants and vertebrates (Jan-Dec 2023).

• Project: DeerImpact: Assessing the impact of deer in Irish forest ecosystems to inform evidence-based deer management and policy (Sep 2024 – Sep 2028).

January 2021 – December 2022: Postdoc researcher at UCD (level 1)

• Project: SMARTDEER: A smart and open-science approach to monitor and analyse deer populations in the Republic of Ireland and set the scene for evidence-based deer management (DAFM –2019 Research Call)

December 2019 – November 2020: Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Barcelona (Spain)

• Project: Interactions between seabirds and fisheries and their coverage by the Spanish network of Marine Protected Areas (Spanish government funding) 

Supervision of students

• Liam Kirwin - Feeding ecology in Irish deer species: applications to effective, tailored management of deer within forestry and agroforestry settings. Ongoing. PhD (UCD, 2025)

• Tahina Ferrara – Use of camera trap data to evaluate the effect of antropogenic disturbances on wildlife activity patterns. Ongoing. Taught MSc in Environmental Sustainability (UCD, 2024)

• Sophie Swinand – Investigating the impact of human presence on vertebrate biodiversity in urban green areas. Ongoing. BSc in Sustainability with Environmental Sciences (UCD, 2024)

Co-supervision of students

• James Dempsey – A statistical modelling approach to determine the influence of environmental and physical sett characteristics on the activity status and trapping success at European badger (Meles meles) setts in Ireland. Taught MSc in Environmental Science (UCD, 2022)

• Nathan Finn – Investigating the Effects of Various Environmental Factors on Badger Presence in Ireland Using Logistic Regression Analysis. Taught MSc in Environmental Science (UCD, 2022)

• Robert Hynes – Identifying the spatial drivers of deer damage in Irish woodland to improve forest management. Taught MSc in Wildlife Conservation and Management (UCD, 2021)

• Dominique Falkenberg – Overabundance of Species: a case study on deer culling returns in Ireland. Taught MSc in Wildlife Conservation and Management (UCD, 2021)

• Colin Brock – Predicting forest damage using relative abundance of multiple deer species and national forest inventory data. MSc in Biological and Environmental Science (UCD, 2023)

• David Abizanda Pardo – Foraging ecology of Cory’s shearwater through isotopic techniques and GPS tracking. MSc in Biodiversity (University of Barcelona, 2017)

• Álvaro Bahillo Villarte – Assessing dietary changes of opportunistic species using stable isotopes analysis: The yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) in the Medes Islands. MSc in Biodiversity (University of Barcelona, 2017)

• Clàudia del Val i del Amo – Study of migratory patterns and activity of two shearwater species, Calonectris borealis and Calonectris diomedea. MSc in Oceanography (University of Barcelona, 2016)

• Elena Puigdemasa Martí – Migratory connectivity of two species of shearwater (Calonectris diomedea and Calonectris borealis). MSc in Biodiversity (University of Barcelona, 2016)

Lectures

• Introduction to Chemistry, Physics and Biology (2022 – 23, 2023 – 24, and 2024 – 25)

• Principles of scientific enquiry (2021 – 22, 2022 – 23, 2023 – 24, and 2024 – 25)

• Biology in action (2022 – 23, 2023 – 24, and 2024 – 25)

• Animal behaviour (2022 – 23, 2023 – 24, and 2024 – 25)

• Wildlife habitat modelling for ecology and conservation (2022 – 23, 2023 – 24, and 2024 – 25)

Research expeditions led

• Veneguera cliffs, Gran Canaria (Spain). July – August 2017: research expedition to ring, obtain tracking data (GPS and GLS), biometrical measures, and biological samples of Cory’s shearwaters (Calonectris borealis) breeding in the cliffs to the Southwest of Gran Canaria. Team of 5 people including MSc and 4th year BSc students.

• Timanfaya National Park, Lanzarote (Spain). July – September 2016: research expedition to ring, obtain tracking data (GPS and GLS), biometrical measures, and biological samples of Cory’s shearwaters (Calonectris borealis) breeding inside the National Park. Team of 2 people, including a 4th year BSc student.

• Timanfaya National Park, Lanzarote (Spain). July – August 2015: research expedition to ring, obtain tracking data (GPS and GLS), biometrical measures, and biological samples of Cory’s shearwaters (Calonectris borealis) breeding inside the National Park. Team of 2 people, including a 4th year BSc student.

Other fieldwork participation

• Participation in fawn tagging campaigns in Phoenix Park, Dublin (Ireland). June 2021, 2022, and 2023: campaigns involving the capture and tagging of fawns, the collection of samples and behavioural observations and occasionally the deployment of GPS collars. 

• Associate editor: Journal of Applied Ecology, March 2023 – present

• PhD defence panel: Sarah Saldanha, Foraging and Migratory ecology of tropicbirds (Phaethontidae), University of Barcelona, September 2024.

• Reviewing experience: reviewer since 2016 for Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Animal Behaviour, Chemosphere, Marine Biology, Reginal Environmental Change, Endangered species research, Animal conservation, European Journal of Wildlife Research, Animal Biodiversity and Conservation, Frontiers in Marine Science, Marine Environmental Research, Journal of Applied Ecology, and Journal of Animal Ecology.

• Postdoctoral representative in the School of Biology and Environmental Sciences School Advisory board (April 2022 – January 2025)

• Postdoctoral representative in the School of Biology and Environmental Sciences EDI committee (November 2022 – current)

• PhD representative in the Departmental Council at the Department of Evolutive Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Barcelona (September 2017 – June 2019)

• Government of Ireland, Department of Agriculture (DAFM - ERAD) bTB funding stream: Towards 2030: filling the wildlife ecology gap in the bTB eradication strategy by modelling badger abundance, health, and sett distribution, using recent advances in Bayesian modelling. January 2023 – December 2024. Principal investigator. (EUR 171,721.25).

• Government of Ireland, Department of Agriculture (DAFM) 2022 Policy & Strategic Studies Research Call: Deer impact on biodiversity: linking soil, plants, and vertebrates. February 2023 – January 2024. Research team member. (EUR 95,064)

• EMBO short-term fellowship: Using innovative Bayesian methods to investigate fine-scale processes affecting spatial distribution of two species of seabirds: a metapopulation approach. March – May 2018. (EUR 7,576.2)

• The Seabird Group small grant: Using novel modelling techniques to investigate the at sea distribution and between-individuals interaction of two closely related species of shearwaters in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. March – May 2018 (GBP 500)

• PhD funding obtained from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and competitivity. Multi-colony approaches to study migratory and foraging strategies in pelagic seabirds May 2015 – June 2019, EUR 82,400)

• PhD from the University of Barcelona Awarded January 2020 with honours (cum laude)

  • Thesis title: Multi-colony approaches to study migratory and foraging strategies in pelagic seabirds.

• MSc in Biodiversity at the University of Barcelona Awarded September 2013

  • Thesis title: Trophic ecology of two species of seagulls breeding in sympatry: an isotopic approach.

• Degree in marine biology, University of La Laguna (Spain) Awarded July 2008 

• Invited oral presentation: Make it make sense: facilitating the use of Species Distribution Models with INLA to non-experts. Royal Statistical Society International Conference. Edinburgh, UK. September 2025.

• Oral presentation: Closing the Wildlife Ecology Gap in Bovine TB Eradication: Bayesian Models of European badger (Meles meles) distribution and abundance in Ireland. Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting. Long Beach, California, August 2024.

• Oral presentation: Bayesian point pattern models of badger distribution and abundance as tools in bovine TB Eradication in Ireland. International Statistical Ecology Conference (ISEC). Swansea, UK. July 2024.

• Oral presentation: Bayesian species distribution models integrate presence-only and presence-absence data to predict deer distribution and relative abundance. British Ecological Society Annual meeting, Edinburgh, December 2022

• Invited oral presentation*: Looking for food: insights into environmental and conspecific cues from Bayesian spatial models with INLA. 29th International Environmetrics Society (TIES) Conference. London, September 2020 *cancelled due to COVID-19 travel restrictions

• Oral presentation: Speciation and ecological divergence in three closely related shearwater taxa: insights from migratory connectivity and non-breeding habitat. 3rd World Seabird Conference. October 2021. Performed virtually due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

• Oral presentation: Spatial mismatch between seabird-fishery interactions and marine protected areas: where do we go from here? VII International Symposium on Marine Science. July 2020 *Performed virtually due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

• Oral presentation: Unravelling the drivers of at-sea foraging distribution in a long-range seabird. 14th International Seabird Group Conference, Liverpool, September 2018

• Oral presentation: The big picture for pelagic shearwaters: global distribution of Calonectris shearwaters across the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. British Ornithologists’ Union Conference. Warwick. March 2017