People

Violeta Berdejo-Espinola

Violeta is a Multilingual Evidence Synthesis Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Her current research addresses the underutilisation of non-English biodiversity conservation evidence in policy and decision-making processes.

While evidence synthesis is a cornerstone of evidence-based conservation at both local and global scales, gaps remain in incorporating the diverse knowledge available in non-English scientific literature. To bridge this gap, she integrates multilingual international collaboration and artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning and natural language processing techniques (e.g., text classification, thematic analysis). This integrated approach allows for the systematic aggregation of multilingual scientific evidence and the development of tools to automate the retrieval of non-English literature on biodiversity conservation. By leveraging human co-production and AI, she aims to create a multilingual synthesis tool that not only accelerates evidence synthesis but also ensures the inclusion of the diverse and valuable knowledge found in non-English evidence.

This work is part of the broader translatE project. Please reach out if you are interested in collaborating: v.berdejoespinola@uq.net.au

Also see: https://cbcs.centre.uq.edu.au/profile/1116/violeta-berdejo-espinola

Marina Corella Tor

Marina is a PhD student at The University of Queensland, working under the supervision of Dr Tatsuya Amano and Prof Richard Fuller. After working as a Research Assistant in the Fuller Lab for the last two years, they are very excited to turn all that work into a PhD. Marina hopes to uncover the current state of international environmental agreements and legislation around migratory bird protection worldwide. They are also interested in the effect of language barriers on international migratory bird agreements across the world.

Erica Cseko-Nolasco

Erica is a nature lover and current PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology. Her early experiences with nature in Brazil taught her the importance of caring for the environment, inspiring her to pursue a bachelor’s degree in biology. Fortunately, she had the opportunity to leave and visit cultures on three continents before settling in Australia. She now works on the social and environmental impacts of conservation initiatives on private lands, aiming to understand how to foster ongoing engagement and support people involved in conservation. Previously, she worked as a research fellow and engagement officer at ICEED, facilitating discussions with groups from diverse cultural backgrounds and brainstorming pathways for restoration. This experience reinforced her belief in the power of communication and collaboration to achieve better environmental conservation and equity. Her main goal is to use interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and practice while promoting pro-environmental behaviours that benefit human well-being and biodiversity.

Erica is a member of the ICCB 2025 Language Accessibility subcommittee and devising ways to reduce language barriers for conference participants.

Rosa Mar Dominguez-Martinez

Rosa is a PhD candidate at The University of Queensland. Although she grew up in the mountains in Spain, she had the privilege to travel to warmer and sunnier parts with her studies and fell in love with the ocean. She graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Conservation Biology and Management at the University of Stirling (Scotland – not so sunny, and Hawai’i – very sunny) and an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree in Tropical Biodiversity and Ecosystems (including Malaysia – the sunniest). In her PhD she is investigating the implications that international trade has on the environmental and socioeconomic sustainability of seafood globally, and the sustainability and resilience of seafood supply chains in Australia. She is passionate about conservation and the ocean, and finding novel strategies to promote the environmental and socioeconomic sustainability of the seafood we consume.

Rosa is a member of the ICCB 2025 Language Accessibility subcommittee and devising ways to reduce language barriers for conference participants.

Kelsey Hannah

Kelsey is a PhD Student at The University of Queensland, working under the supervision of Dr Tatsuya Amano. She has an interest in understanding gaps and barriers in implementing conservation science in a way that can promote meaningful improvements. Her research will support the translatE project, focusing on understanding how language barriers can negatively impact the application of science in decision making as well as assessing the importance of non-english conservation science.

See her latest paper here.

Angela Liu

Angela is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. Her research focuses on designing suitable conservation strategies for marine migratory megavertebrates. She grew up in the concrete jungle of Beijing, but when her family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada, she found her passion in conservation ecology and environmental spatial analysis. She hopes that she can be part of the movement toward a more inclusive and multicultural future in conservation science, starting here with breaking down the barriers towards language accessibility.

Angela is a member of the ICCB 2025 Language Accessibility subcommittee.

Elize Ng

Elize is a postdoctoral research fellow and her current research focuses on documenting the conservation efforts for shorebirds along the East Asia Australasia Flyway (EAAF).

The East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), the largest of the world’s nine major flyways, spans 26 countries from Arctic Russia to Australia and New Zealand, supporting 67 migratory shorebird species across culturally, politically, and linguistically diverse regions. While decades of conservation efforts have shown signs of stabilizing some populations after significant declines driven by habitat loss and anthropogenic pressures, the specific management actions driving these improvements remain unclear. This review addresses the critical need to evaluate conservation strategies, including non-English language literature, to capture diverse perspectives and practices across the flyway. By synthesizing evidence on conservation effectiveness and identifying gaps, the project aims to provide actionable guidance for harmonized, region-wide conservation efforts, culminating in a practical handbook for land managers and policymakers.

If you are interested in contributing or collaborating on this project efforts, please reach out to me at elize.ng@uq.edu.au

Elize is also a member of the ICCB 2025 Language Accessibility subcommittee.

Conrad Pratt

Conrad is a PhD student at the University of Queensland supervised by Dr Tatsuya Amano and Professor Richard Fuller, and externally by Dr. Munemitsu Akasaka at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. His research is focused on language barriers in the environmental sciences in Japan. Japan is a country with a high scientific research output but low English proficiency, and Japanese scientists, stakeholders, and their research face multifaceted inequities as a result of the dominance of English in science. However, there has yet to be an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms and impacts of language barriers in science in Japan, within the environmental sciences or more generally. Conrad’s project aims to improve our understanding of this issue by providing valuable data and perspectives on the current causes and effects of language barriers on the generation, external consumption, and implementation of research in the environmental sciences in Japan, and formulating potential solutions based on these findings.

Conrad is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, and holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Science and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto, and an M.Sc. in Biological Oceanography from Dalhousie University. Before undertaking his PhD, he worked at the interface of science and management as an Aquatic Invasive Species Biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. His areas of scientific expertise include aquatic ecology and invasive species. An avid language learner, Conrad currently speaks Japanese at an upper intermediate level and is aiming to push for fluency over the course of his PhD. He is also an intermediate-level speaker of French and Korean.

Aquetzalli Nayelli Rivera-Villanueva

Nayelli is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Tatsuya Amano at the University of Queensland. She is very passionate about bats and language inclusion in science. Her research will be about tapping into non-English-language science for addressing global challenges including biodiversity conservation. She is the founder of, and responsible for an environmental outreach NGO in Mexico (BUM). Her group works to disseminate the importance of bats and tackle the myths surrounding them across all of Mexico. Her goal is that all people can access scientific knowledge and that academia recognizes the importance of including non-English-language evidence in research.

Haonan Wei

Haonan was an honours student majoring in environmental science at The University of Queensland. Her childhood experiences, which had been filled with nature documentaries, provided her with vicarious connections to nature and thus drove her to study her current major. She has a strong interest in the role of popular science as an important medium to gain public attention to environmental issues, and has completed her honours project on the importance of Chinese-language nature documentaries for raising public conservation awareness. She is now also helping our multilingual evidence synthesis project.

See her latest paper here.

Henry Arenas-Castro

Henry was a Senior Research Technician assessing the commitment of journals in organismal biology to overcoming language barriers in academic publishing. He finished his PhD on the study of gametic interactions, where he explored the forces that drive the evolution of pollen-pistil interactions in plants and its consequences for speciation. He combines quantitative genetics and population genomics to understand how pollen competes for fertilising an ovule as well as the various mechanisms of cryptic female choice.

See his paper from this project here.

Also see: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=js2_BV4AAAAJ

Ayontika De

Ayontika completed a research project for her master’s in environmental management. Ayontika’s passion for sustainable technologies and resilient communities led her to pursue bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Biotechnology and a master’s in environmental management at The University of Queensland. She has worked across public, private, and not-for-profit sectors, addressing scientific issues in education and health, developing a unique skill set from these diverse experiences. Previously, as a Project Associate, she researched occupational health challenges faced by mining communities in Jharkhand, focusing on silicosis and its socioeconomic impact. Ayontika’s journey includes key collaborations with government and not-for-profit institutions to advance adaptive sustainable frameworks, policy development, and ethical research practices.

Naoki Katayama

Naoki is a researcher seeking a better balance between food production and biodiversity conservation, especially in Asian rice ecosystems. Through his research experience in Japan, he is working on assessing the importance of multilingual scientific evidence for biodiversity conservation in agroecosystems. Naoki is a principal investigator at the Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, NARO in Japan and stayed for one year with us as a visiting academic at the School of the Environment, The University of Queensland, Australia.

See his profile at: Google Scholar / ORCID / Twitter

Pablo Negret

Pablo was a Senior Research Technician for the project helping to understand the impact of language differences in conservation outcomes for vertebrate species. He recently finished his PhD in ecology and biodiversity conservation, particularly understanding how different biological and anthropic factors affect biodiversity patterns and conservation outcomes in the South American tropics. He has also worked in different ecology and conservation projects, including assisted nesting of Arrau and yellow-spotted river turtles, camera trapping and vegetation plots in the Yasuní national park in Ecuador and big cat conservation and ecology with Panthera in Colombia.

See his paper from this project here.

Also see: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DiWp0CAAAAAJ