Dr Simon Pooley

Simon Pooley is the Lambert Lecturer in Environment (Applied Herpetology) in Birkbeck’s Geography Department, where he directs the MSc in Environment and Sustainability. His research interests are interdisciplinary, ranging across geography, environmental humanities (history in particular), ethnozoology and conservation science. With interdisciplinary training and fellowships from Birkbeck, Oxford and Imperial College London, he studies the historical, cultural and geographical dimensions of human-animal (wild and domesticated) interactions, including negative and positive interactions, issues around justice and equity, and how to integrate other knowledge systems and stakeholders into decision-making on human-wildlife coexistence.

Simon grew up in game reserves in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and has a particular interest in crocodilians, with fieldwork mainly in southern Africa, and recently Gujarat, India – though he works with IUCN SSC Crocodile Specialist Group colleagues from across the world on human-crocodile interactions. His interests also include wetlands and hippopotamus, the history of conservation, research methodologies, and interdisciplinarity itself.