About us

A large number of faculty from both within and outside the School of Life Sciences contribute to the programme. The following summarises our main interests and areas of research.

Professor Trevor Beebee - Professor of Molecular Ecology
Trevor’s main interest is in European amphibians, especially the application of genetical and ecological approaches to their conservation. He is currently working on the use of polymorphic genetic markers to investigate the population structures of wild populations and on the significance of genetic variation in the long-term viability of amphibian population and the consequence of isolation and inbreeding. Trevor is president of the British Herpetological Society and a trustee of the Herpetological Conservation Trust.

Professor Peter Drewett - Professor of Archaeology
Peter’s main areas of interest include settlement and landscape archaeology of early agricultural peoples; work which has taken him to Portugal, Hong Kong, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands as well as his work in the UK. Current work includes the archaeological component of CCE’s research project on the evolution of the Sussex Ouse landscape. Peter is chairman of the Sussex Archaeological Society and has served on the councils of the Royal Archaeological Institute and the Prehistoric Society and on the Countryside and Scheduling Committees of the Council for British Archaeology and the career Development and Training Committee of the Institute of Field Archaeologists. He was archaeological advisor to the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.

Dr David Harper - Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology
David’s passion is birds. His research interests are in the behavioural ecology of passerine birds, with a special interest in the Robin; the causes and consequences of variation in body condition; communication; declining farmland bird populations; ectosymbionts, especially feather mites; fruit defence and stop-over behaviour of migrating birds. He also has a secret vice – an inordinate fondness for spiders. David is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the British Trust for Ornithology and a trustee of the Disabled Birders Association and has served on the council of the Wetland Trust and the editorial board of Bird Study.

Professor Sue Hartley -Professor of Ecology
Sue is a community ecologist with a particular interest in plant-herbivore interactions. She is currently working on multi-trophic interactions: how plants modify the interactions between herbivores and other organisms, herbivory and plant defence: how environmental factors alter plant allocation to defence and the consequences for insect herbivores and herbivory and plant communities: how herbivory and resource availability interact to affect the competitive balance between species. Sue is a vice-president of the British Ecological Society and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Ecology. She is a member of the Advisory Committee for Releases to the Environment, the EU Working Group on Post-market Monitoring of GMOs and the GMO Panel of the European Food Safety Authority.

Dr David Hill - Lecturer in Ecology
David is a behavioural ecologist with a particular interest in primates and bats. He is currently working on the ecology and conservation of insectivorous bats in forest and woodland habitats and the function of bat social calls. Other research includes the social and feeding behaviour and conservation of Japanese macaques; the effects of logging and conifer plantations on habitat-use by forest mammals; crop raiding and other sources of conflict between people and wildlife. David is a member of the UK Committee of the IUCN and the Primate Specialist Group of the IUCN Survival Commission. He has served on the of the council of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, and of the Primate Society of Great Britain and is a member of its Conservation Working Party.

Dr Libby John - Senior Lecturer in Ecology
Libby is head of the department of Biology and Environmental Science. She is a community ecologist whose research interests include the effects of heterogeneously distributed nutrient supply on plant growth and competition, the effects of herbivores and nutrient availability on plant community structure, the relation between dominance and diversity in plant communities and pattern in plant and lichen communities. Libby is a member of the council of the British Ecological Society and has served on the council of the British Lichen Society.

Dr David Robinson - Reader in Physical Geography
David is a physical geographer with two main areas of interest: soil erosion and land degradation and rock weathering and landform evolution. Current research includes the impacts of farming practice on erosion rates and off-farm flooding; the potential impacts of climate change scenarios on soil erosion; frost and salt weathering of rocks and building stones; the weathering of sea cliffs and beach shingle; sandstone weathering and the evolution of sandstone landforms and biological weathering.

Professor Tim Roper - Professor of Biology
Tim is mammal behavioural ecologist working at both the theoretical and practical level. Current projects include the processes underlying communal decision making in animals; the behaviour of badgers in relation to transmission of bovine tuberculosis from badgers to cattle; the population genetics of badgers in the UK and Luxembourg and the co-operative behaviour of yellow mongooses in southern Africa; field research on wild boar and stone martens. He is editor of Advances in the Study of Animal Behaviour and a past editor of Animal Behaviour. In addition Tim advises the government on matters relating to the control of bovine tuberculosis.

Dr Alan Stewart - Senior Lecturer in Ecology
Alan is an invertebrate ecologist with a particular interest in temperate grasslands, and tropical and temperate forests. He works on the restoration of species-rich invertebrate communities after intensive agriculture; invertebrate conservation and the conservation of selected species such as the Glow Worm and Reed Beetles. He is an authority on the leafhoppers (Auchenorrhyncha). He is chairman of the Conservation Committee and former Vice-President of the Royal Entomological Society and the RES representative on the Joint Committee for the Conservation of British Insects and the Institute of Biology Environment Committee. He is a trustee of the Sussex Wildlife Trust and chair of the Steering Committee of the Sussex Biodiversity Records Centre. Alan is also a member of the National Biodiversity Network Schemes and Societies Committee and national co-ordinator of the Auchenorrhyncha Recording Scheme.

David Streeter - Reader in Ecology and Course Convener
David is interested in landscape ecology and the relationship between ecological theory and conservation management. He has worked on the effects of informal recreation on the vegetation of tourist sites and on the selection and establishment of nature reserves and designated landscapes. David is president of the Sussex Wildlife Trust and a member of the Conservation Panel of the National Trust. He has served as a member of the Committee for England of the Nature Conservancy Council, the Countryside Commission, the Land and Buildings Panel of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the South Downs Joint Committee. He is a trustee of the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum and has also served on the councils of the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, the British Ecological Society, the Field Studies Council and the Botanical Society of the British Isles and as chairman of the BSBI Conservation Committee.

Dr Rendel Williams - Reader in Physical Geography
Rendel’s interests encompass rock weathering, coastal erosion and Quaternary environmental change together with biogeography and wildlife conservation. His work on periglacial Britain led to the study of fossils as environmental indicators and hence to the need to study the ecology of modern terrestrial molluscs. He is a trustee of the Sussex Wildlife Trust and chair of its conservation committee and a member of the British Conchological Society and the Malacological Society.