Dr Lucy Bates, Senior Lecturer, University of Portsmouth
I would never have been able to relaunch my career, nor even have the confidence to apply for jobs without my Daphne Jackson Fellowship”.
Lucy undertook her Daphne Jackson Fellowship between 2016 and 2018, hosted and funded by the University of Sussex. Her research focused on the evolution and prevalence of culture in elephants. Lucy was particularly interested in how they learn from one another and what management and conservation practices could be used to protect them.
Lucy’s fellowship research informed a policy submission to the South African government that recommended steps to improve elephant management and conservation. Many of these recommendations were incorporated into the resulting ‘white paper’ produced by the South Africa Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.
After her fellowship, Lucy accepted a teaching position with the Open University followed by a lectureship at the University of Portsmouth, where she continues the research themes started in her fellowship.