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Dr. Mark Hulme is a conservationist and lecturer in Zoology in the Faculty of Science and Technology. He started teaching at UWI St. Augustine in 2018 after moving from the UK. He teaches courses in Living Organisms, Ecology, and Environmental Modelling though he also loves to be out in the field. He shared with us some thoughts about his students, his research, common misconceptions about biology and zoology, and why the living species in your backyard are way more valuable than you think.
My conservation research involves assessing populations and the distribution of various species of wildlife, then determining whether they are changing due to human impact on the environment. For example, what is the effect of deforestation and agricultural practices on the environment? I work with both undergraduate and graduate students who always appreciate research that may have a real-world impact. Currently I’m working with a graduate student as we survey the endemic and critically endangered Trinidad Piping-guan or Pawi using audio recorders in the field.
I’ve been very encouraged by the interest that many students show in biology, zoology, and in improving conservation actions in the Caribbean. The best students are those who are curious, organised and hard-working. Interest will only take you so far, but you’ve got to apply yourself in order to get the most out of your academic and wider life whilst you’re at university.
That you have to only be interested in science. Biology crosses over to many other topics such as social sciences, economics, mathematics, and politics. While you do need a strong scientific background, interest in other aspects of life and the world can be very important in terms of how much you get out of the subject. This is going to help you when you eventually leave university and go into the job market.
Another misconception is that you won’t have to do any more Maths! There is a lot of Maths in biology. Don’t let that put you off; just make sure you take the quantitative side of biology seriously!
The pandemic situation has highlighted how important scientific expertise and education are because it is science that’s going to help us recover from this situation, both in terms of reducing virus transmission and ensuring that this doesn’t happen again. A science degree is going to be all the more valuable after COVID particularly in interdisciplinary research. Governments and businesses are going to need well qualified people with science degrees to help them navigate our new situation.
Bioblitz is an event where experts and members of the public join forces to find and identify as many different species as possible within a defined area within 24 hours.
Last year’s T&T Bioblitz was entirely online, via the iNaturalist website, so that people didn’t need to congregate while looking for wildlife and plants. They found them within their own backyards while following COVID-19 safety protocols.
We got more than 200 observers, over 6,000 observations and over 1,000 species which really compares extremely well to our previous annual face-to-face Bioblitz events. I think that shows how citizens, using science and new technologies, can really help expand the reach of biology, zoology and botany. The public and many UWI students participated and got to learn about the biodiversity of this country. Even more, the event formed the basis of at least two undergraduate student research projects.
Being a Game changer is about working to make the world a better place. The most important, game changing work I do at UWI is to educate and mentor young people to take charge of the changes that are happening in their country, the region, and across the world through education and research. They can then bring the skills they develop here at UWI to the world once they’ve left the university. That’s the biggest way I can help UWI students to change the game.
For more about the Faculty of Science and Technology and other game changing programmes, please visit https://sta.uwi.edu/programmes.
The University of the West Indies St. Augustine (UWI),
St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
Tel: (868) 662-2002
Fax: (868) 663-9684
E: admis@sta.uwi.edu
This page highlights The UWI St. Augustine Game Changers campaign and showcases our 8 Faculties and over 200 programmes available to Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Continuing Students.
The UWI, St. Augustine ranks first in Trinidad and Tobago among accredited tertiary-level programmes, and The UWI ranks as one of the top Latin American and Caribbean universities in the world according to the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings.
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