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I moved to the UK from Nigeria for an MSc at the University of Oxford, after which, I enrolled for a PhD at the University of Cambridge. Before my postgraduate studies, I worked on Cross River gorilla conservation in protected areas in southeast Nigeria, where my current PhD research is based. With funding from the Gates Cambridge Trust and the supervision of Professor Andrew Balmford, I am finalising a PhD on the ecology and conservation of the world’s most trafficked wild mammals, the pangolin. My PhD aims to enhance law enforcement and community-based interventions to reduce hunting and improve rural livelihoods. I am using GPS tags to understand the movement ecology of white-bellied pangolins, camera traps to predict their habitat preferences, and one of the longest-running datasets on wildmeat hunting and trade in the tropics – which I ethically collected from hunters and wildmeat vendors over three years – to map local and transnational patterns of species exploitation.
Cambridge’s Department of Zoology is a vibrant and stimulating academic space with supportive professionals from different fields in conservation. As a postgrad, you could easily find experts willing to help you succeed in your studies. Additionally, by being part of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, the department offers an incredible opportunity for students to increase their professional network and possibly collaborate with practitioners from top conservation organisations. The Department of Zoology may provide financial support for fieldwork in the form of start-up or supplementary funds for students with cost-intensive field projects. I received some of these grants, which were invaluable during the early stages of my PhD. There are also numerous training opportunities within the department and central university to help students excel in their work. Training courses are not limited to research but include broader areas such as public engagement and time management. In addition to the department, you can receive technical, academic, and financial support from your college – a great social setting for meeting new people.
I also find Zoology to be a culturally safe space. For example, during the heat of the Black Lives Matter movement, the department, including some research groups, actively engaged in anti-racism discussions, proposing reforms for more diversity and cultural integration, with some of these reforms already being implemented. Further, despite the chaos associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the department proactively attended to the well-being of postgrads and continues to find ways to support students affected by the pandemic. Cambridge’s Department of Zoology is a superb academic environment to be affiliated with, and I believe you would have a tremendous time studying in this 155-year-old institution.
Charles Emogor, Conservation Science Group (April 2023)
I am in the second year of my PhD studying the foraging behaviour and ecology of seabirds in the Southern Ocean. I am co-supervised by Professor Andrea Manica in the Evolutionary Ecology Group at the Department of Zoology and Professor Richard Phillips in the Ecosystems Team at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), so I split my working time between Zoology and BAS. My research uses remote tracking data from albatrosses and petrels to understand what at-sea habitats they use for finding prey, and how their foraging strategies change with age, breeding status, and environmental change.
The Department of Zoology hosts many postgraduate students working on a huge variety of topics, from genomics and adaptation to behaviour and ecology. The community of postgrad students and postdocs is very friendly and supportive, and there are plenty of opportunities to present and discuss your research and hear about the work of others in a mix of internal seminars and external events. I am one of the postgraduate student representatives this year, and we have reinstated the Zoology Grad Tea Talks - short research talks by postgrad students every Friday, which are only attended by fellow students and postdocs. This provides an informal and encouraging environment to practise our presentation skills, as well as getting to know other students and the breadth of research going on in the department.
Opportunities for collaboration are a great strength of the Zoology department, as well as the University of Cambridge more widely. I am funded by the NERC DTP, which organises training and networking across various University departments. My own PhD project is a partnership between Zoology and BAS, which is very rewarding for me: at Zoology I have access to my research group's expertise in modelling, opportunities for teaching, and a variety of other ecological research, while at BAS I am exposed to all kinds of research from geology and ice cores to climate and oceanography, helping me to understand the context of the Antarctic ecosystems I study. Next door to Zoology in the David Attenborough Building is the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) - 10 organisations doing globally important work in conservation science and policy, and actively collaborating with University researchers in Zoology and beyond. Before starting my PhD I worked in seabird conservation at BirdLife International which is part of the CCI, and continuing collaboration with conservation scientists has been one of the highlights of my PhD so far.
Lizzie Pearmain, Evolutionary Ecology Group (April 2023)