My general interests lie in human-animal interactions, how they influence animal welfare, and how we can measure these impacts.

Specifically, my PhD is studying elephants working in the timber industry in Myanmar, the largest semi-captive population of Asian elephants in the world, focusing on how the close relationship that they have with the men that they work with (their mahouts) impacts their well-being. Our findings have highlighted changes to the mahout profession in recent decades, with current mahouts being younger and less experienced than in the past, changing elephants more frequently. I specifically focus on how these changing relationships may be impacting the health, behaviour and general well-being of the elephants. 

I am also interested in certain times of conflict within this relationship, looking at the impacts of the taming procedure that elephant calves go through in this population, a time of increased mortality with the aim to improve both population viability and individual welfare.