Meet the Editors

For more on what our Lead Editors would like to see submitted to the journal, please take a look at this short interview with them. We are currently recruiting Associate Editors; to see who has joined the team so far please visit our Editorial Board page.

Editor in Chief - Kevin J. Gaston

Kevin is Professor of Biodiversity and Conservation at the Environment & Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter. Kevin’s research focusses heavily on the interactions between people and nature. Much of this work has concerned the impacts of anthropogenic pressures on species, communities and ecosystems. More recently it has also had a heavy emphasis on the benefits people gain from nature, including those associated with their health and wellbeing. Kevin has worked on a wide range of taxa, and study systems that span the globe, and has collaborated with colleagues across a wide array of disciplines. 

Lead Editors

Rosemary Hails

Prof Rosemary Hails is the Science Director for Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH).   She is Chair of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) and a member of the Natural Environment Research Council Science Board as well as Council member of the RSPB. She leads the co-ordination team for the Valuing Nature Programme, a £7 million interdisciplinary research programme funded by NERC, ESRC, BBSRC, Defra and AHRC. She is a vice president and member of council for the British Ecological Society (BES) and in 2008 co-founded the Natural Capital Initiative in collaboration with the BES and The Royal Society of Biology. She was a member of the expert panel and an author for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and a member of the first Natural Capital Committee. She was awarded an MBE for services to environmental research in June 2000.

In mid-July 2018 Rosemary will be moving from CEH to take up the new position of Director of Science and Nature for the National Trust.

 Kai Chan

 I am a professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at University of British Columbia. I am an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented sustainability scientist, trained in ecology, policy, and ethics from Princeton and Stanford Universities. I strive to understand how social-ecological systems can be transformed to be both better and wilder (‘better’ including considerations of justice). Towards this end, I do modeling and empirical research to improve the management and governance of social-ecological systems. I have special interest in ecosystem services (ES; while recognizing and working on the concept’s limitations), including cumulative impacts and risks to ES; the evolutionary ecology of pest control; applied environmental ethics; ecosystem-based management; social-ecological systems and resilience; and connecting these ecosystem-oriented efforts to environmental assessment (e.g., LCA).

 Robert Fish

I am a Reader in Human Ecology in the School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent. I am an environmental social scientist interested in the social and cultural dimensions of natural resource management. Understanding how the natural world is imagined, valued and planned as an asset for human well-being is the preoccupying concern of my research.

Much of my work is centred on rural and agricultural landscapes and is distinguished by its interdisciplinary, participatory and problem-centred focus, as well as by direct intervention in the policy process.  In recent years I have been particularly associated with the development of ecosystem based approaches to natural resource management, which I seek to influence and shape from a social science and critical starting point.

Cecily Maller

I am a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia where I co-lead the Beyond Behaviour Change Research Program. My research focuses on human-environment interactions in urban settings in the context of everyday life. I am particularly interested in how people interact with animals and plants in homes and neighbourhoods, how these interactions affect health and wellbeing, and the implications for making cities greener and more biodiverse. As part of this work, I am a lead investigator for the Australian Government’s Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub (funded by the National Environmental Sciences Program). I have been interested in the health benefits of contact with nature since working on the Healthy Parks, Healthy People initiative in the early 2000s. Although an interdisciplinary scholar, my work is broadly situated in human geography, specialising in post-humanist approaches and qualitative methods.