Milton is a researcher specializing in tropical ecosystems, with a keen interest in understanding and predicting the impacts of global environmental changes on biodiversity and human well-being. His current work employs advanced remote sensing techniques and machine learning to detect climate-induced forest degradation across South America. He also plays a crucial role in SinBiose Trajetorias, a collaborative initiative among Brazilian institutions that explores the socioeconomic and environmental factors influencing the emergence of vector-borne diseases in the Amazon. Additionally, Milton contributes to Brazil's Long-Term Ecological Research Project (PELD), focusing on global changes in mountaintop grasslands. His research aims to develop scalable tools that leverage AI for tracking changes in forest resilience and vulnerabilities, supporting global conservation and climate adaptation efforts. Milton's innovative approach provides vital insights into sustainable ecosystem management and the mitigation of climate change impacts.

Eleanor is a postdoctoral researcher in the Oxford Ecosystems and Oxford Seascape labs. Her background is in ecological remote sensing with a focus on tropical forest ecosystems.     She is currently working on a Bertarelli Marine Science Project that seeks to quantify the importance of seabird-derived nutrients on tropical island ecosystems. This is a joint project between Oxford, Exeter and Lancaster University The project works with local partner organisations across the Chagos Archipelago, Seychelles and French Polynesia to support tropical island conservation and restoration in these regions.   She is also a Senior Researcher at Gentian Ltd. Outside of work, you can see her cycling around Oxfordshire, flying her drone up at Wytham woods, or swimming in the river.

Manu is a postdoctoral researcher whose research interests revolve around investigating how anthropogenic pressures and their interactions with climate can alter fire regimes in tropical forests. She does so through studying both fine-scale flammability metrics and broad-scale drivers and patterns via spatial modelling. Currently, Manu is investigating the apparent atypical fire season of 2019 in the Amazon and unpicking the relative contribution of the main drivers. Her John Fell/GCRF project seeks to inform policies and prevent other severe fire seasons in the Amazon.

Huanyuan is a Postdoctoral researcher with a profound interest in African forest ecology, carbon cycle modelling, and plant functional traits. Affiliated with both the University of Oxford and UC Berkeley, he is responsible for building the Global Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) Forests carbon cycle database. Dr. Zhang-Zheng's primary research endeavours encompass the compilation of the GEM forests carbon cycle database, data-model comparisons of forests' gross primary productivity, and meta-analyses of forest productivity across a multitude of tropical sites. He is also the sole author of CRAN R package 'ARTofR' (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ARTofR/index.html). Dr. Zhang-Zheng earned a BSc in Environmental Science from Sun Yat-sen University in China, and the University of Birmingham. He also holds an MRes in Ecosystem and Environmental Change (Distinction) from Imperial College London. In 2023, he was awarded DPhil in Geography and the Environment from the University of Oxford with a thesis entitled "Gross primary production of West African tropical forests". He has been the recipient of the Environmental Change Institute small grants from the University of Oxford, the Tang scholarships awarded by the China Oxford Scholarship Fund, and the Henfrey scholarship on Chinese studies from St Catherine’s College, Oxford. Additionally, his research was funded by Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden Open Funding, and African-Oxford Catalyst Grant, awarded by African-Oxford Initiative. Born on a tropical island (Nan'ao Island, China) and passionate about tropical ecosystems, he has travelled to and conducted research in Mexico, Colombia, Ghana, Malaysia and Yunan, China. He is also a PADI qualified Free Diver and Dive Master.

Felipe is a community and spatial ecologist focusing on how spatial structure influences biodiversity and related ecological processes. In his research, he studies the effects of anthropogenic landscape structures on different facets of biodiversity, including taxonomic diversity, functional diversity and beta diversity. Currently, he also seeks to use the multidimensionality of biodiversity to gain insights into natural capital biological assets, both in pristine and recovering natural areas. Felipe has also developed computational spatial modelling tools for nature recovery, including the simulation of ecological corridors and the identification of priority areas for restoration and conservation. He is currently an ecological remote sensing postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, funded by Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, where he is working on the use of Earth Observation data to map aspects of ecosystem functionality and resilience, and to assess the temporal dynamics of land use and land cover change in areas dedicated to nature recovery.

Emily is a postdoctoral researcher in the Nature-based Solutions Initiative and Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery. Her research focusses on understanding biodiversity outcomes of nature-based solutions. She is particularly interested in exploring the impact of nature-based solutions interventions experimentally and in developing monitoring approaches to capture biodiversity responses within nature-based solutions projects. She provides an ecological and biodiversity focus as part of an interdisciplinary team working on scaling up nature-based solutions in the UK, through the Agile Initiative. This will lead onto further research exploring the biodiversity outcomes of restoration efforts in two case study landscapes (Oxfordshire and the central Scottish Highlands) as part of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery.

As an interdisciplinary ecologist with a core background in zoology and conservation, Ella works on providing evidence for effective biodiversity restoration measures. Introduced to the fascinating hidden world of bats during her undergraduate Zoology degree, she was hooked, and has been studying bats ever since using them to understand impacts of anthropogenic environmental change on biodiversity. Bats’ use of echolocation led Ella to a deeper exploration of the use of passive acoustic monitoring techniques for gathering vital ecological data, and she co-wrote the first guidelines for conservation practitioners on using passive acoustics. Ella continues to work on developing and improving tools for collecting passive acoustic data and extracting ecologically information from audio using machine learning methods. Ella is more widely interested in combining conservation technologies, Internet of Things systems, and AI tools for enabling automation, to improve the efficiency of biodiversity data collection and assessment of biodiversity recovery measures.

Wendee is a postdoctoral researcher focusing on nature and wellbeing, funded by the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and the Flourishing and Wellbeing Theme of the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. Her work explores the wellbeing impacts of green and blue spaces in the UK and the Global South. She specializes in both quantitative and qualitative methods, with particular expertise in geospatial analysis, and is dedicated to understanding how human being is influence by urban and rural environments to inform policy making. Wendee has experience working on health benefits of urban green and blue spaces in England with charities, government, NHS and community groups. Before that, Wendee finished her PhD in Geography from University of Melbourne, with the thesis investigated the water-related externalities by constructing huge amounts of urban green and blue spaces. The research findings contributed to the critical understanding of environmental policy and provided evidence to impact urban planning. She also serves as the current secretary of the Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group of the RGS (Royal Geographical Society)-IBG.

Laurence is a postdoctoral researcher focusing on nature, human health and wellbeing, funded by the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and the Flourishing and Wellbeing Theme of the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. He completed his PhD in Geography from the University of Southampton. This work explored the relationship between environmental conditions, including landscape characteristics and climate risks, upon different dimensions of both objective and subjective wellbeing – with a particular focus on the Volta Delta in Ghana. Laurence is a social scientist, with experience in using both qualitative and quantitative methods to detect human-environment relationships. He also undertook a consultancy role at the UN Food & Agriculture organisation (Regional Office for Asia Pacific) where he worked on incorporating broader dimensions of wellbeing within the nature-based solutions programme.

Renata is a researcher whose interests focus on the effects of abiotic factors such as increased temperature, rising CO2 levels, and contamination from mining waste on plant physiology and performance. She leads physiological investigations under the Brazil's Long-Term Ecological Research Projects (LTER/PELD – CNPq), studying global changes in mountaintop grasslands, and the BIOCHRONOS project: Monitoring Hidden Degradation, Biodiversity, Functions, and Ecosystem Services at the Land-Water Interface of the Rio Doce. Her work contributes to understanding and mitigating the impacts of environmental changes on sensitive ecosystems.

Ella holds a dual role within the Leverhulme Center for Nature Recovery as both an environmental practitioner and a researcher. She is the monitoring and evaluation manager for the Evenlode Landscape Recovery project and an interdisciplinary environmental researcher, who connects other Leverhulme Center researchers with the Evenlode Landscape Recovery project. In her role as a Leverhulme Center for Nature Recovery researcher, she currently co-leads a project on utilizing available nature finance opportunities to maximize habitat connectivity in agricultural landscapes in the UK, across various scales. Raphaella also has supported Leverhulme Center research projects on farmer’s perception of nature recovery aesthetics in the Cotswolds and on aligning archeological preservation with BNG and nature finance markets guidelines. Her additional research interests encompass democratization, inclusivity, and access in nature valuation methodologies.

Julia is a Laboratory and Field Technician at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery (LCNR). She works with Dr. Cecilia Dahlsjö to advance our understanding of the impact of nature recovery (through both passive and active restoration) on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, using a grazing intensity gradient. Much of her time is spent collecting and identifying the weird and wonderful array of invertebrates found in the UK, followed by detailed lab analysis to classify them to species and functional group level. Julia has previously worked with various research groups at the university and as such her she has a broad range of research interests which include the conservation of migratory passerines, the effects of climate change on phenology and woodland ecology, deploying remote technology to track small mammals and study the relationship between gut microbiome and survival rates and the effects of drought on grassland plant communities. However, since her work with AGILE on Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) in 2022/2023, she has developed a passion for entomology and can now often be found inspecting logs and getting distracted on walks (her friends now know to plan walking routes with this in mind). She is also a member of the West Oxfordshire Farmland Bird Project (WOFBP), a local bird conservation and ringing group that collaborates with farmers and landowners to conserve farmland bird species across sites in southwest Oxfordshire. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time on the tennis court playing for her local club and dreaming of getting a wild card for Wimbledon, and chasing sunsets to add to her photography collection.