Research
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Dr Dan Bebber
Head of Climate Change Research - Extn: 842
Dan joined Earthwatch as Head of Climate Change Research in 2007. He is responsible for scientific research at the five global climate change field centres, in the UK, USA, Brazil, China and India, where the relationship between forest management and climate change is being investigated. His doctorate considered the influence of El Nino-related droughts on forest regeneration in Borneo. His professional interests are the ecology and management of forests, and experimental design and statistics. He has research experience in reduced-impact silviculture in Canada, sustainable harvesting of medicinal plants in India and Nepal, the biology of woodland fungi in the UK, and monitoring community forestry in Cambodia.
Dan is also Research Fellow in Biology at St. Peter's College, Oxford University, where he teaches ecology and statistics.
Dr Samantha Burgess
Senior Research Manager, Oceans Programme - Extn. 808
Sam joined Earthwatch in 2010, responsible for development, implementation and oversight of the marine research projects concentrating on ocean ecosystem research and expanding capacity development activities. Her main foci include improving ocean ecosystem sustainability, enhancing biodiversity and maintaining marine ecosystem services.
Prior to joining Earthwatch, Sam worked in the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Oxford as a research scientist focussing on linking geochemistry, oceanography and ecology to improve our understanding of past climate variability. Her doctorate from the Australian National University analysed chemical signals in temperate coral skeletons to produce century scale records of sea surface temperature and indicated significant anthropogenic impacts due to European settlement in Australia. Sam obtained an MSc from University of Auckland in marine ecology and a BSc from the University of Adelaide.
Sam has research experience in a wide range of marine environments including coral reefs, temperate rocky reefs, seagrass, mangroves, seamounts and deep-sea coral habitats. Field experience also includes over four months spent 'at sea' participating in oceanographic expeditions in the south Pacific and Southern Ocean examining active volcanism, deep-sea coral habitats on seamounts, hydrothermal vent communities and fishery populations. Sam believes communicating the value of scientific research to the public is incredibly important and has engaged in outreach activities about climate change and marine biodiversity on the radio, in print and online media fora and at science festivals.
Dr James Burton
Research Manager - Extn: 802
James joined Earthwatch in January 2006. He is responsible for Earthwatch’s biodiversity conservation field research projects and also manages a number of projects on the enhancement of ecosystem services. His role includes working with many of Earthwatch’s corporate partners to develop relevant research projects. Since joining Earthwatch, James has visited a number of Earthwatch projects in Asia, Middle East and Europe.
Dr Martha Crockatt
Research Assistant to Head of Climate Change Research - Extn: 632
Martha joined Earthwatch in May 2010, working with Dan Bebber on the scientific research at the five regional climate centres of the HSBC Climate Partnership project. This project investigates the relationships between forest management and climate change in temperate and tropical forests around the world. Her doctorate is in the ecology of endangered woodland fungi from Cardiff University. Having followed this up with a post doctoral research project on forest ecology and biochemistry around closed landfill sites, she has a wide experience of forest ecology. Martha also has research experience in organic agricultural systems and soil invertebrate diversity.
Debbie Winton
Research Officer - Extn: 805
Debbie started at Earthwatch in January 2008. Her responsibilities include supporting the Oceans research programme through development of projects and monitoring and evaluation of the research on current projects; producing the annual Earthwatch science report; and coordinating the receipt and distribution of all annual reports from the field.
She has an MSc in Marine Environmental Protection, which followed a BSc (hons) in Marine Biology and Zoology, both from the University of Wales, Bangor. Research for her MSc project was conducted in Rodrigues, Mauritius, focusing on assessing the habitats, coral reef health and fish abundance of a proposed marine protected area. Before Earthwatch, she worked in Fiji as an Assistant Marine Research Coordinator on a conservation research project based on the remote island of Gau, where she also gained her PADI Divemaster qualification. Other past experiences include three months volunteering in Madagascar on a marine research project, to survey the coral reefs at a previously un-researched location on the south-west coast, and stints in the field in the UK on a bumble bee ecology project. Debbie is a keen outdoors person and has travelled quite widely, including Thailand, Iceland, South Africa and Swaziland, Morocco, and many parts of Europe.