Lydia is a conservation ecologist, interested in how ecosystems, in particular peatlands, can be managed sustainably under contemporary pressures. Past and current projects, involving time in both academia and industry, include: creating remote monitoring tools for UK peatlands; reconstructing past vegetation change and assessing future prospects for Malaysia’s coastal peatlands; exploring human-wildlife interaction in northeast India, and human-peatland interaction in the Peruvian Amazon; and investigating the challenges of peatland restoration in rural Scotland. She’s an advocate for finding co-designed solutions to local challenges.
Lydia is a lecturer in Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews and Deputy Director of postgraduate programme: Data Literacy for Social and Environmental Justice. She’s Chair of the British Ecological Society’s Conservation Ecology Special Interest Group and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Peatland Society.
Outside of work, Lydia is usually on her bike, up a hill, or in the sea.
Lydia Cole
