During my twenties I was a Project Manager, working in the UK and abroad. In my early thirties I decided I wanted to come back to sciences and research and went to Imperial College to do my second MSc. My project was with the Zoological Society of London, on drones (the start of my PhD research). When my MSc concluded, I continued working with the Zoological Society of London as a paid employee, doing the same drone work. This then rolled into the PhD that I am doing now, which is titled 'Water-landing drone engineering for marine ecology, fisheries and plastics detections'.
I met my now supervisor at a conference, as he had been to my talk and was looking at my poster. He suggested I apply for a place in engineering and I thought that this would give me a unique angle for my work (being a conservation scientist). If I had stayed in London, I would have been in an ecology-based department, which meant my ability to design and build drones would be very limited. Loughborough University has given me the opportunity to take our drone work to the next level.
To give some context, over three billion people worldwide rely on fish protein (either wild caught or farmed) as their primary source of protein. However, the oceans are being polluted, overfished and overlooked, risking famine and ecosystem collapse. Governance in fisheries and marine conservation in marine protected areas and lakes, in developing or remote tropical nations, often have low success, leading to ecosystem degradation, increased pressures on wildlife and effects on livelihoods. Causes usually include lack of capital and poor infrastructure to match the scale of the areas, which can translate to ineffective enforcement and superficial conservation management. Weak governance invites illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, accounting for global annual estimated losses of $10-24 billion and includes harmful practises such as dynamite fishing and abuses of human rights through slavery on pelagic vessels. Conservation initiatives often suffer from unreliable funding and short-term projects led by international groups, doing uncoordinated capacity building. As a result, regardless of perceived project success, longevity and project integrity are low and ultimately environmental degradation continues.
Drone technology has been used successfully in beyond visual line of sight flights across Africa for conservation and patrolling, but there are engineering challenges in transposing the current technology into the marine realm, within a realistic budget, and this is what my PhD is focusing on.
Improving the ability for managers to easily enforce governance rules where funding and resource is low is challenging. Efforts toward this fortification will ensure local livelihoods, global fish populations and aquatic habitats are preserved, improving socioeconomic stability for people and less persecution on wildlife.
I believe that a bespoke fixed wing water landing multi-use drone with proven ecologically robust methodologies and an enforcement toolkit will be this technology - one which local governments can purchase and use without the need for sustained involvement from us.
I had started this research as part of my second MSc and my career change. The reason I did the MSc was specifically to get onto a PhD, so I chose my MSc research project and partner carefully to match my core interests and goals, and to compliment my work experience (technology, marine conservation and international projects). The project naturally had legs and we haven’t looked back since! The reason I wanted to do a PhD was because I was unhappy and unfulfilled in generic project roles and wanted a challenge targeting global problems.