My background is mainly in species conservation, education and capacity exchange. I researched mother-young interactions in gorillas and chimpanzees, in captivity and the wild. After that, I worked for three years in Indonesia, where I developed and implemented youth ambassador and community engagement programmes on local and regional scales. I co-founded WildHub, a community of nature conservation professionals, in 2020 and work as their Community Lead. I am furthermore on the Advisory Board of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent where I obtained my PhD on capacity development for conservation in 2022. 

Shelley acts as community manager for the two growing networks that sit alongside the core Cambridge Masters in Conservation Leadership teaching programme; the University of Cambridge Conservation Leadership Alumni Network (UCCLAN) and the Conservation Leadership Transformation Network. The management of these two networks delivers two of the three goals set out in the Masters in Conservation Leaderships ten-year strategy; to catalyse the impact of the UCCLAN; and to establish a Global Conservation Leadership Community of Practice. Shelley is a former archaeologist, who moved into the communications sector and has been specialising in external affairs and communications at the University of Cambridge for the last 15 years. Shelley is a brand specialist with extensive experience in delivering large-scale communications campaigns for the University’s high-profile events such as the Cambridge Science Festival, alongside training staff and students from across the University in to how to engage audiences both in person and online.

I have a background in Social Anthropology and recently graduated from DICE with an MSc in Conservation and Rural Development. I carried out fieldwork in Uganda for my dissertation focusing on the impacts of tourism and conservation on residents working in community-led enterprises that live around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Prior to that I interned at Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH) a grassroots NGO focused on improving community well-being and mountain gorilla conservation using a one health approach. . I believe that securing and supporting the rights of indigenous and local people are crucial and I am passionate about environmental and social justice and interested in the political ecology of conservation, convivial conservation and bio-cultural approaches to conservation.

Senior third sector manager with more than twenty years’ experience in international wildlife conservation, 15 of which in a management and leadership role. My focus has been on driving individual capacity development programmes (conservation leadership, facilitation etc.), institutional capacity building of NGOs, multi-stakeholder collaborations, conservation education and conservation programme development.

I am passionate about primates, felids and large mammals, conservation education and outreach.