Dr Benno Simmons

About me:

**Full details can be found on my lab website**

I’m an ecologist and conservationist who uses use data science, AI and technology to help understand and reverse biodiversity loss. I have broad interests, but some specific projects being worked on at the moment in the lab are:

• Using deep learning to automate the identification of rare species in camera trap images
• Using large datasets of species population trends to understand global biodiversity change
• Assessing the potential for other effective area-based conservation measures to support marine biodiversity
• Combining camera traps and bioacoustics to automatically monitor lion populations in Africa
• Using global datasets of species interaction networks to predict the impacts of invasive species on ecological communities
• Using machine learning to forecast the productivity of the Amazon from climate models

If you’re interested in these topics, or anything else that combines data science and ecology or conservation, please do get in touch.

Full details of my publications can be found on my lab website or Google Scholar.

Office hours w/c 25th Nov: 3-4pm, Monday and Friday.

Qualifications:

• PhD Zoology, University of Cambridge
• MRes, Imperial College London
• BA (Hons), University of Oxford

Career:

• 2023 - present: Lecturer in Ecological Data Science, University of Exeter
• 2020 - 2023: Research Fellow, University of Exeter
• June 2019 - December 2019: Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Sheffield
• 2015-2019: PhD Student, University of Cambridge