Macroecology. Birds. Languages.

​I am an evolutionary biologist interested in the heterogeneity of diversity across space and time. My research spans the fields of macroecology, macroevolution, and behavioural ecology, and I use both bird traits and human languages as my 'study systems.'

I am currently (2017-present) a Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews, working with Kevin Laland on the evolution of bird nests.

I was previously (2016-2017) based in the EXCD lab with Fiona Jordan at the University of Bristol, where I used modern phylogenetic comparative methods to study the evolution of human kinship systems. Before that (2012-2016), I did my PhD in Zoology at the Edward Grey Institute, University of Oxford, supervised by Dr Joseph Tobias (now Imperial College London) and Prof Nathalie Seddon, investigating the global distribution of avian morphospace and researching the role of social processes in the evolution and maintenance of avian diversity.