About

Jonathan is a global authority on the status and trends of threatened species. He is Conservation Programmes Director at the Zoological Society of London and works on a large number of projects which focus on monitoring the status of rare and threatened species.

Jonathan’s extensive fieldwork experience includes research and monitoring of western lowland gorillas in Gabon, Central Africa; developing ecotourism sites in Central Africa; monitoring rare endemic birds in the Gulf of Guinea; and behavioural studies of desert baboons in Namibia.

Carly is the EDGE Programme Manager. She oversees all EDGE research, conservation and capacity building initiatives, from developing new priority lists through to initiating targeted conservation projects for those species in most urgent need of conservation attention.
Carly has travelled extensively throughout South and Central America, Australasia and Indonesia. Her fieldwork experience includes the ecology and conservation of orangutans in Borneo, and socio-economic surveys of fishermen in China.

Craig is the EDGE Conservation Biologist and plays a key role in the development and implementation of field research and conservation initiatives focusing on poorly-known EDGE species. His role is split between consolidating and further developing ZSL’s capacity-building EDGE Fellows programme, and co-ordinating larger-scale field projects.

Craig’s past work has involved coastal waterways in Costa Rica, coral reefs in Tanzania, island wildlife of Malaysia, endemic species of the Philippines and community forest conservation in Papua New Guinea. He currently co-ordinates the ZSL red slender loris conservation project in Sri Lanka.

Cath is the EDGE Fellows Co-ordinator. She is responsible for coordinating the EDGE Fellowship Programme. The EDGE Fellows Programme supports aspiring in-country conservationists who carry out research on little known EDGE species.

Cath holds a BA in Biological Anthropology and an MSc in Primate Conservation and has conducted research on the impact of phylogenies on conservation and the seed dispersal function of chacma baboons as part of these qualifications. Before coming to EDGE, Cath worked as Office & Communications Manager for Save the Rhino and as a Project Assistant on ZSL’s Africa Conservation Programme.

Sam is an expert on past and present mammal extinctions. His research addresses historical and prehistoric human impacts on global ecosystems and the magnitude of human-driven extinctions over time, and how to develop conservation strategies for today’s endangered mammal species.

Sam is already heavily involved with active conservation projects for top EDGE species. He has been one of the key co-ordinators for the recovery programme of the Critically Endangered Yangtze River dolphin and for the Hispaniolan solenodon.

Ben’s research has provided valuable insights into extinction processes and conservation decision-making. He is currently developing species-based biodiversity indicators to enable conservationists and policy-makers to determine whether we can achieve a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss.

Matthew is the project manager of the EDGE Sharks programme. He is responsible for co-ordinating project development, which includes fund-raising, liaising with partners developing the shark phylogeny, increasing the profile of the project and identifying conservation initiatives that could be applied to potential EDGE Shark focal species.
He has worked on the research and conservation of aquatic animals, particularly fish, for over 15 years and is also involved in other projects including the conservation of the Thames Estuary, the creation of the Chagos Marine Protected Area and freshwater fisheries management in Nepal. Read more.

James is a freelance web-developer. He is responsible for web programming, database design, and other related activities on the EDGE project. Having programmed computers in several different languages from the age of eight, James studied Physics at Imperial College, London. He worked as a software developer for ICL and then Deutsche Bank for nearly five years, before deciding to go freelance. In addition to his development work, James is a professional Thai massage teacher and practitioner and an occasional life-model and piano teacher.

Alasdair is a Technical Advisor for ZSL's Conservation Technology programme and a web developer for the EDGE of Existence programme. His current focus is the delivery of ZSL's Instant Wild project, the advancement of camera trapping technology and the future development of the EDGE website. Alasdair is also a founder and director of the primate conservation organisation The Great Primate Handshake.

David, originally from Sweden, lives in Ireland with his wife and works for an IT company. Passionate about nature since a young age his interest in conservation was particularly stirred during a recent year-long round-the-world trip, when he among other things made friends with a baby Giant Anteater in an Amazonian animal orphanage and on Borneo saw EDGE Species #97 the Orangutan, as well as the endless rows of palm-oil plantations that are now pushing it towards extinction. David created the EDGE Google Earth maps, allowing you to view EDGE species anywhere on the planet.

Alex is a zoologist and since she graduated she has travelled the world to observe and work with exotic and endangered species. She has led an expedition to British Guyana to survey the biodiversity of a protected area of rainforest, investigated invasive bird species in Australia, rehabilitated wild marsupials, and assisted zoos with carnivore conservation strategies.

Alex is now the web intern for EDGE. She designs innovative content for the website and social media and implements novel fundraising ideas to increase support. Through this she hopes to promote international awareness about under-represented EDGE species.

Nick's background is in evolutionary biology and phylogenetic analysis. These skills are essential for calculating Evolutionary Distinctiveness scores. Nick is currently exploring how abundance varies among populations of butterflies and mammals in response to different forms of land-use. His research uses patterns in biodiversity to understand extinction risk and predict how threatened animals can survive into the future.

Kate’s research is focused on the evolution of mammal biodiversity, understanding the processes that drive past and present patterns to predict the future. Kate works developing and analyzing global datasets of mammal distributions, life histories and phylogenies. In fact, she was part of the team that put together the supertree of all mammals, from which the ED part of the EDGE score is calculated.

Arne, a Canadian evolutionary biologist, is the author of over 40 papers and book chapters on the evolutionary aspects of biodiversity. Alongside recent work on the effects of El Niño on butterfly communities in Borneo, he has had a long-standing interest in the shape of the Tree of Life. It is this characteristic shape (a tree with many lonely species) that is captured in measures of Evolutionary Distinctiveness and so EDGE. Arne was trained at McGill University and at Oxford, and worked at the University of British Columbia and the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam.

Dave first studied evolutionary distinct species for his Master’s thesis project and now is researching how EDGE scores can be applied to the world’s birds. He also plans to investigate geographical patterns of distinctness with the hope of finding out which regions or habitats need to be prioritized.