CV
I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Zoology at Trinity College Dublin, during which time I started to develop an interest in the distribution of species. Upon graduating in 2009 I undertook an MSc in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation at Imperial College London. My MSc dissertation was an analysis of the impacts of by-catch on the fish species Antimora Rostrata, in terms of both biology and distribution. I have spent a number of years working in science communication roles, including Communications Officer at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. Recently I completed my PhD at University College Cork on the distribution and vulnerability of seabirds in Irish waters, assessing potential risks, particularly from the petroleum industry, and the status of their conservation protection. The project was funded by the Irish Petroleum Infrastructure Programme (PIP) in order to develop a tool to predict seabird vulnerability to oil pollution. I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy in University College Cork.
Research interests
My broad research interests are in studying and understanding species distributions, and their potential overlap with and vulnerability to anthropogenic activities, particularly in the marine environment. At UCC I am part of the EirWind project, an industry-led collaborative research project co-designing the opportunity around the sustainable development of Ireland’s marine resources, using offshore wind as the catalyst for innovation and impact. My work focuses on the risk to seabirds from offshore wind development in Ireland by assessing their distribution and potential vulnerability.
As part of my PhD research I developed a foraging radius based model to predict the distributions of seabirds at sea using data on colony locations, size and species foraging behaviour. Predictive distribution models have the potential to be a quick and cost effective way of assessing at-sea distributions, and could be applicable for a wide range of species.
Publications
Critchley, E. J., Grecian, W. J., Kane, A., Jessopp, M. J. & Quinn, J. L. (2018) Marine Protected Areas show low overlap with projected distributions of seabird populations in Britain and Ireland. Biological Conservation 224: 309-317