ABOUT

The Ramp Lab research group engages in science that informs conservation initiatives aimed at understanding, mitigating, and adapting to environmental change. At the core of his research lies an adoption of the principles of compassionate conservation, a growing international movement that incorporates the wellbeing of individuals alongside other factors in decision making. 

 

The Ramp Lab specialises in spatial modelling of fine-scale landscape dynamics, aimed at identifying processes of disturbance that promote persistence or extinction. We work on a range of different taxa and issues. Our approach is targeted towards tackling environmental issues that have historically proven difficult to address, creatively solving problems through innovative thinking.

Daniel Ramp is a conservation biologist with an interest in landscape ecology, behavioural ecology, road ecology, and wildlife-human interactions.

 

At the core of his research lies an adoption of the principles of compassionate conservation, a growing international movement that incorporates the wellbeing of individuals alongside other factors in decision making.  Daniel is the Director of the Centre for Compassionate Conservation at UTS.

 

With a long interest in marsupials from the family Macropodidae, Daniel is a co-founder of THINKK – the think tank for kangaroos, an academic forum that aims to foster greater understanding among Australians of kangaroos.

 

Daniel has been a Senior Lecturer in the School of the Environment since 2011. Previously he was a Senior Research Fellow in the Australian Wetlands and Rivers Centre at the University of New South Wales. He held an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship at UNSW working on road ecology after completing his doctoral research on eastern grey kangaroos at the University of Melbourne.

John is a terrestrial ecologist, who started his career with a BSc(Hons) from the University of Wollongong and later a PhD from the University of New England. His research portfolio and interests are broad, including everything from measuring the response of terrestrial invertebrates in riparian revegetation to marine herbivore interactions in temperate lake systems. Much of his research work has centered in the Hunter Valley, NSW, where he has worked on a number of projects involving 'citizen scientists'.

 

Before joining the lab, John was a post-doctoral fellow at the Australian Museum studying the ecology of the introduced bee Halictus smaragdulus. His professional work has also involved commercial survey work in the remote Pilbara region of WA where he has led field teams surveying Short-range endemic invertebrates. The data from these surveys have been used to understand the impacts of humans on invertebrate communities, assessing environmental surrogacy as well as being used in the environmental approvals process for open-cut mining operations.

 

As a Research Fellow at UTS, John is working on the influence of climate variability on invertebrate community dynamics. He is always generating new questions from his work, and welcomes contact from students looking for projects.