Elise Damstra

I am a quantitative ecologist interested in acoustics and the environment. My PhD research focuses on analysis of acoustic data collected on Brazilian coffee farms to understand the changes in sound across gradients of forest cover. I use a mixture of soundscape and machine learning techniques to answer different scopes of question about how biodiversity is affected by local land use. 

Bats are of particular interest in my work as they can be detected with ultrasonic recording.  I use machine learning to identify and classify bat calls into taxonomic groups by adapting existing tools trained on high quality UK bat calls. 

Another aspect of my work is quantifying buffering effects of microclimates on coffee farms in Nicaragua. This work is done in partnership with the start-up Climate Edge.