SHANTA BARLEY

For my CV see this PDF.

​

For a summary of media work please see this PDF. 

​

I grew up in Indonesia, where I learnt to dive at the age of twelve and spent many years exploring reefs along the archipelago. At Oxford University, I studied Biological Sciences and my thesis examined the effects of stress on the reproductive fitness of the blue tit. After winning a Natural Environment Research Council scholarship to do an MSc in Oceanography at Southampton University, I worked as a researcher and writer at the BBC for a climate change website called Bloom. I also worked as an environment reporter for New Scientist and wrote articles for the Guardian, Nature and Nature Climate Change, and was awarded in 2011 the Association of British Science Writer’s (ABSW) Richard Gregory Award for Best Newcomer. I then moved to the remote southwest corner of Madagascar to work as a field scientist with Blue Ventures, where I trained volunteers to survey the coral reefs and managed the monitoring program of the critically endangered and endemic spider tortoise. From 2012-2016 I did my PhD on the role of sharks on reefs at the University of Western Australia in Perth, and I am now continuing my research on sharks running the Pangaea Initiative as a postdoc, with fieldwork in Chagos, Cocos (Keeling), the Great Barrier Reef and the north coast of Australia. In my spare time, I'm a trail runner, accordion player, rock climber and free diver... and beginner kite surfer.