Research
Intensive fishing and warming oceans both reshape fish populations. My thesis asks how respiratory traits — especially gill surface area relative to body size — relate to vulnerability, size trends, and temperature associations across comparative, historical, and survey data.
Dissertation
Effects of chronic oxygen stress and ocean warming on fish
The work integrates comparative physiology, vulnerability indices, historical recreational catch records, and a global baited remote underwater video (BRUVS) database. Standardised gill surface area emerges as a recurring correlate of climate- and fishing-related patterns. The Gill Oxygen Limitation Theory (GOLT) is used as an organising framework for interpretation; chapter results are correlational and do not jointly confirm the theory.
Chapter themes
Climate vulnerability and cardio-respiratory traits
Comparative analysis of teleosts and elasmobranchs tests whether physiological attributes — including standardised gill surface area and haemoglobin-related measures — relate to Climate Vulnerability Index scores. Standardised gill surface area shows a modest association with climate vulnerability; other tested cardio-respiratory traits do not.
Fishing vulnerability, gill surface area, and size decline
Long-term recreational tournament records from Western Australia (1965–2019) identify taxa with declining maximum recorded size. Among declining taxa, fishing vulnerability and standardised gill surface area together explain most of the variation in decline rate — with requiem sharks (Carcharhinidae) as a prominent case. Temperature is treated as a tested covariate rather than an assumed driver of among-taxon differences.
BRUVS length–temperature associations and respiratory traits
Global Marine Futures Lab stereo-BRUVS surveys relate individual fish lengths to sea-surface temperature across expeditions, contrasting ectothermic and endothermic groups and linking size–temperature patterns to climate vulnerability and standardised gill surface area — with explicit attention to survey design and sampling limitations.
University of St Andrews
Seabird surveys from the tropics to Antarctica
This project uses standardised seabird surveys from an expedition vessel to study how seabird presence and abundance change along transects from the equator to Antarctica. Effort-aware observations are combined with environmental data — wind, swell, and sea-surface temperature — to build statistical models that separate real ecological patterns from variation in observation conditions.
The work maps where and when key seabird species are most likely to occur across that latitudinal gradient, and helps improve how ship-based seabird surveys are designed and interpreted.
Led by Dr. Nora von Xylander at the University of St Andrews, with statistical analysis by me.
Arizona State University
Blood ammonia in clinical contexts
I collaborate with researchers at Arizona State University on blood ammonia in people: how it is measured, interpreted, and used when liver function and neurological outcomes are in question. Ammonia is an important biomarker, but values can shift with method, matrix effects, and sample handling.
My role is to revisit existing datasets and build statistical models that account for variability across conditions and sampling approaches — helping turn complex biochemical data into clearer, more comparable insights for clinical use.
The broader goal is more reliable, better-standardised blood ammonia assessment — supporting sounder diagnostics and patient care.
