WELCOME SEAN RANDS - NEW SE
Submitted by editor on 13 January 2020.
Sean Rands has joined Oikos as a new subject editor, welcome! He is a behavioural and evolutionary ecologist, currently based at the University of Bristol as a senior lecturer. Below is a short interview with Sean, so we can all get to know him and his work!
Personal webpage: www.seanrands.com
Twitter: @SeanRands
1. What's your main research focus at the moment?
I'm a behavioural ecologist who mixes theoretical work with experimental work, and I like to keep busy in quite a few areas at once! At the moment, I'm particularly interested in collective and group behaviour in animals, using theory to explore how both leadership and dispersed decision-making can work. I'm also interested in picking apart the interactions between pollinators and plants, using a mix of modelling, lab experiments on bumblebees, and field observations in both the natural environment and some wonderful botanic gardens!
2. Can you describe your research career? Where, what, when?
After a PhD looking at parental care in birds at the University of Bristol, I conducted postdoctoral research between the University of Cambridge and the Zoological Society of London, where I modelled leadership behaviour in chacma baboons. After a short second post-doc modelling sexual selection that was shared between Cambridge and the Falmouth branch of the University of Exeter, I moved to the Animal Welfare and Behaviour Group at the University of Bristol's Vet School to take up a lectureship. I moved to the School of Biological Sciences in 2012, where I am now a senior lecturer.
3. How come that you became a scientist in ecology?
I wanted a career in biology when I was very little, and all the things that excited me all clicked together when I read 'The Selfish Gene' at about the time I was considering applying for a degree: being able to explore evolutionary biology and then discovering behavioural ecology existed was the only motivation I needed for targetting my research career towards behavioural and theoretical ecology. I haven't looked back!
4. What do you do when you're not working?
Wrestle small children, mostly. And try (unsuccessfully) to catch up on sleep.
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