Nick Harvey Sky

Interdisciplinary conservation scientist using a range of methods to study the aims, future and social dynamics of conservation in a changing world.

Nick is an interdisciplinary researcher who has incorporated methods from the natural and social sciences into his work on conservation throughout his career. He started off as a biologist, with an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and began his social science training with a masters degree in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford. 

Nick completed his PhD at the University of Manchester, on a NERC Doctoral Training Programme, in partnership with Chester Zoo. He studied the conservation of large herbivores, particularly eastern black rhino (Diceros bicornis michaeli) in Kenya. For the biological aspects of this PhD, he conducted fieldwork across three Kenyan rhino reserves and used population viability analysis and metabarcoding of dietary plants, gut microbiome and nemabiome from dung samples to link diet and gut health to individual breeding success and population performance. For the social science aspects, he used questionairre surveys and insights from political ecology to interrogate the aims and methods of large herbivore conservation. 

After his PhD, Nick spent 2 1/2 years working in policy in the UK, first for the British Ecological Society and then for Citizens Advice. He worked on areas including the target to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030, regenerative farming, ecological research funding, and a just transition to net zero for energy consumers. He maintains a keen interest in how reseach is translated into effective and socially just policy. 

Nick has extensive experience of teaching and workshop delivery, including an introductory course on conservation science for the Open University Myanmar TIDE project in Yangon in 2019.

Nick is currently the postdoctoral researcher on Norwegian Research council funded project titled "Conservation Labor: A New Frontier in Labor Theory and Conservation Science (CONLAB)". Anwesha Dutta is the PI for this project, having been awarded a Young Talent grant.