Spotlight on... Tim Newbold

What is your role and what does it involve? 

I am a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, which is part of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment. I am nearing the end of a University Research Fellowship funded by the Royal Society, after which I will be transitioning to an Associate Professor role. I manage a research group, which currently consists of four post-doctoral researchers, seven PhD students and five Master's students. We are interested in how habitat loss and climate change are causing changes in the world’s biodiversity, with a particular focus recently on insects. I also lead the MSc in Biodiversity & Global Change, and teach a module on data handling and statistics. 

How long have you been at UCL and what was your previous role? 

I joined UCL in 2015. Before that, I was a post-doctoral researcher at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. 

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of? 

It is not something I have fully worked out yet (not even close!), but as a work in progress I have been involved in a number of initiatives around working culture, and mental health and wellbeing. With my research group, I developed an expression of our own group’s working culture, which we publicise on our website. This has been a really positive experience, and has led to many really important conversations about the way we work. I am now working on similar initiatives within the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, and at the departmental level. I firmly believe that producing the best research is only possible if we provide a balanced, supportive and respectful culture. 

Tell us about a project you are working on now which is top of your to-do list 

A lot of my energy at the moment is directed towards trying to predict the future of insect biodiversity under habitat loss and climate change. There have been reports recently of rapid declines of insect biodiversity in recent years, and we urgently need to understand how these trends will continue into the future. We are challenged by having much less data for insects than for other groups of animals, but the situation is improving rapidly with the advent of new technologies for monitoring insects. 

What is your favourite album, film and novel? 

Choosing a favourite album and novel is really difficult, because I love so many. A novel that really stuck with me when I first read it was Birds Without Wings by Louis De Bernières. At the moment, I have been particularly enjoying the album Rise Aurora by the folk singer Rosie Hodgson. I have always loved the film Master and Commander, as well as the books on which it is based. 

What is your favourite joke (pre-watershed)? 

A dung beetle walks into a bar and says: “Excuse me, is this stool taken”? 

Who would be your dream dinner guests? 

David Attenborough, Stephen Fry, Andy Serkis, the comedian Mark Steel, and the impressionist Jan Ravens.

What advice would you give your younger self? 

Follow your passions, even if they don’t always work out quite as you intended, and never forget to stop and have fun as often as you can. 

What would it surprise people to know about you? 

Although these days I mostly do computational research, I did fieldwork in Egypt during my PhD, surveying butterflies and reptiles, to understand how climate affects biodiversity patterns. This included a 10-day expedition, crossing the very remote and mountainous Eastern Desert (the Western Desert is the famous sandy desert). It was so much fun spending time with a crack team of Egyptian wildlife experts, especially somewhere so beautiful and so little studied in the past. 

What is your favourite place? 

I have been very fortunate to have been able to have visited many amazing places. Among my favourites must be the High Pyrenees in Southern France. Last year, my family and I had the chance to camp for a night at the stunningly beautiful Refuge du Mont Né high up in the mountains.