People

Supervisors and mentors - along with the Directorate a range of other academics from across disciplines form our staff and student supervision teams

Professor Colin Beale - I work on a wide range of ecological problems from population dynamics and distributions to fire ecology in the African savannah.

Professor Neil Carter - I am interested in all aspects of environmental politics and policy, with a particular interest in climate policy and politics. 

Dr Sabine Clarke - My research considers the relationship between scientific research and visions of economic and social development in the British colonies after 1940.

Professor Peter Coventry -  I work across all elements of applied health services research, using evidence synthesis, qualitative methods and trials with a focus on evaluating complex interventions for people with mental health problems and long term conditions.

Dr Simon Croft - I work predominantly on the modelling of supply chains of agri-goods and food, linking activities to impacts and risks at the point of origin. 

Professor Kanchon Dasmahapatra - I apply genetic and genomic data to understand interesting evolutionary questions, in particular the causes of speciation.

Professor Maria Dornelas - My research focuses on quantifying biodiversity and understanding the processes that shape it. 

Dr Alison Dyke - I work on nature-society relations, particularly focused on interactions between humans and trees, biosecurity, plant health and wild harvest.

Dr Jon Green - I work to trace the impacts of consumption on biodiversity, via often-complex chains of trade in agricultural commodities.

Professor Tony Heron - My current research focuses on ideas of resilience in global food systems; the political economy of agricultural reform in the UK in the context of Brexit; the governance of global value chains; private standards in the Brazilian soybean sector; and food security in the Greater Mekong Subregion. 

Professor Jane Hill - I study the impacts of climate change and habitat loss on species to understand their responses to environmental change.

Dr Luisa Huaccho Huatuco - My expertise in manufacturing systems' complexity, contextualises my current research interests including sustainable supply chains.

Dr Teresa Kittler - My research focuses on artistic practices from 1945 to present day, with a special interest in Italian post-war art, primarily on issues related to art and the environment and feminism.

Dr Simon Mair - My research interests include the post-growth and degrowth economics, post-capitalism, and alternative economies.

Professor Nicky Milner - My research mainly focuses on the Mesolithic period; palaeodiet and consumption practices are among my interests, along with settlement, mobility and the analysis of seasonality information. 

Professor Jon Pitchford - I use mathematical models and apply methods from dynamical systems and stochastic processes together with computer simulations to study challenging biodiversity problems.

Dr Amanda Rees - My research areas include the sociology of human/animal relation, field science, the public presentation of scientific knowledge and the representation of science in fiction.

Professor Helen Smith - My current research includes tracing the liveliness of matter and making the case for literature as a means of engaging with and assaying the world around us. 

Professor Susan Stepney - A major strand of my research is computational simulation of complex systems, in particular, biological systems.

Professor Lindsay Stringer - My research is conceptually anchored in areas including global environmental governance, political ecology and socio-ecological systems science.

Dr Daryl Stump - My research interests focus on the development of agricultural landscapes, with a particular emphasis on sustainability and on the use of historical perceptions within development and conservation narratives.

Professor Jacco Thijssen - My main research interests are in mathematical models of dynamic decision making in general, and investment under uncertainty (real options) in particular.

Professor Chris Thomas - I am interested in understanding biologival and human processes that give rise to species being successful, the ways people exploit them, and the ways successful species exploit humans. 

Dr Julia Touza - My research explores environmental problems driven by economic factors, and evaluates the strategic behaviour of natural resource users/managers in a temporal-spatial context.

Professor Mark Vellend - My research focuses on plant population and community responses to environmental change.

Professor Victoria Wells - I am interested in the role the environment plays in consumers’ behaviour whether it is how the environment affects consumer choices or how consumers’ behaviour affects the physical environment.

Dr Chris West - My current research focuses on the role of commodity trade and supply chains in driving environmental change, where I have a particular interest in effects on biodiversity and tropical deforestation.

Professor Piran White - I lead the University of York’s involvement in the Australian-based Co-operative Research Centre on Invasive Animals.