Prof Kathy Willis, CBE

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Prof Kathy Willis, CBE

Principal Investigator / Professor of Biodiversity

Kathy Willis is currently a Professor of Biodiversity and Head the Oxford Long-term Ecology group (see Oxford Long-term Ecology Lab) in the department of Biology, University of Oxford. She is also the Principal at St Edmund Hall, which is one of the oldest Colleges in the University of Oxford.  She is primarily a plant scientist by training and her research is focuses on the use of fossil and modern datasets, models and innovative technologies to determine the diversity, distribution and abundance of plants and animals across global landscapes in space and time. This evidence-base is then used to understand biodiversity baselines, the resilience of biological communities to external shocks, the positive and negative relationships between biodiversity and human health, and the distribution of natural capital assets across global landscapes that are important for human well-being.