Tatsuya Amano

As a conservation scientist, Tatsuya is working on understanding changes in global biodiversity and providing scientific evidence for its conservation. Through his work and his background as a conservation scientist originally from Japan, he has increasingly been interested in, and is committed to, unveiling the importance of overcoming cultural barriers in environmental sciences. This has driven him to launch the translatE project in 2019, which aims to understand language barriers in conservation and more broadly in science. Tatsuya is currently an Associate Professor based at the School of the Environment and the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Australia.

See his profile at: UQ website / Google Scholar / ORCID / Bluesky / LinkedIn

Violeta Berdejo-Espinola

Violeta is a Multilingual Evidence Synthesis Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Her current research addresses the underutilisation of non-English biodiversity conservation evidence in policy and decision-making processes.

While evidence synthesis is a cornerstone of evidence-based conservation at both local and global scales, gaps remain in incorporating the diverse knowledge available in non-English scientific literature. To bridge this gap, she integrates multilingual international collaboration and artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning and natural language processing techniques (e.g., text classification, thematic analysis). This integrated approach allows for the systematic aggregation of multilingual scientific evidence and the development of tools to automate the retrieval of non-English literature on biodiversity conservation. By leveraging human co-production and AI, she aims to create a multilingual synthesis tool that not only accelerates evidence synthesis but also ensures the inclusion of the diverse and valuable knowledge found in non-English evidence.

This work is part of the broader translatE project. Please reach out if you are interested in collaborating: [email protected]

Violeta has a wide range of interests and also explores human-nature interactions particularly in the urban Global South. Her interdisciplinary research intersects modelling nature’s contributions to people living in formal and informal settlements, health, climate change risks, perceptions of safety, and poverty. 

See profile at: Google Scholar

Marina Corella Tor

Marina is a PhD student working under the supervision of Dr Tatsuya Amano and Prof Richard Fuller. After working as a Research Assistant in the Fuller Lab for the last two years, they are very excited to turn all that work into a PhD. Marina hopes to uncover the current state of international environmental agreements and legislation around migratory bird protection worldwide. They are also interested in the effect of language barriers on international migratory bird agreements across the world.

Kelsey Hannah

Kelsey is a PhD Student working under the supervision of Dr Tatsuya Amano. She has an interest in understanding gaps and barriers in implementing conservation science in a way that can promote meaningful improvements. Her research will support the translatE project, focusing on understanding how language barriers can negatively impact the application of science in decision making as well as assessing the importance of non-english conservation science.

Naoki Katayama

Naoki is a researcher seeking a better balance between food production and biodiversity conservation, especially in Asian rice ecosystems. Through his research experience in Japan, he is working on assessing the importance of multilingual scientific evidence for biodiversity conservation in agroecosystems. Naoki is currently a principal investigator at the Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, NARO in Japan and a visiting academic at the School of the Environment.

See his profile at: Google Scholar / ORCID / Twitter

Nga-Yee Lai

Yee is a PhD student studying global and regional waterbirds using global datasets to identify trends and drivers of changes in waterbird distribution, abundance, connectivity between regions and community structures, aiming to provide guidance to better protect waterbirds and inform wetland conservation policy development. She also works with CSIRO and the University of Hong Kong on her PhD project.

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Elize Ng

Elize is a postdoctoral research fellow working with Prof Richard Fuller and Dr Tatsuya Amano to develop a comprehensive conservation action database for shorebirds along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. This project aims to streamline conservation strategies and guide effective management for this remarkable group of migratory birds. With a background in population and evolutionary genomics, Elize’s previous research explored how factors such as captive trade, habitat fragmentation, and climate change shape avian species across regions from Southeast Asia to Antarctica. Through her postdoctoral work, she seeks to expand her research focus to involve applied conservation, with a specific interest in integrating genomics into conservation practices for a more targeted approach to biodiversity preservation. Outside of work, Elize is an avid birder, along with a passion for good food.

Conrad Pratt

Conrad is a PhD student at the University of Queensland supervised by Dr Tatsuya Amano and Professor Richard Fuller, and externally by Dr. Munemitsu Akasaka at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. His research is focused on language barriers in the environmental sciences in Japan. Japan is a country with a high scientific research output but low English proficiency, and Japanese scientists, stakeholders, and their research face multifaceted inequities as a result of the dominance of English in science. However, there has yet to be an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms and impacts of language barriers in science in Japan, within the environmental sciences or more generally. Conrad’s project aims to improve our understanding of this issue by providing valuable data and perspectives on the current causes and effects of language barriers on the generation, external consumption, and implementation of research in the environmental sciences in Japan, and formulating potential solutions based on these findings.

Conrad is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, and holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Science and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto, and an M.Sc. in Biological Oceanography from Dalhousie University. Before undertaking his PhD, he worked at the interface of science and management as an Aquatic Invasive Species Biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. His areas of scientific expertise include aquatic ecology and invasive species. An avid language learner, Conrad currently speaks Japanese at an upper intermediate level and is aiming to push for fluency over the course of his PhD. He is also an intermediate-level speaker of French and Korean.

Aquetzalli Nayelli Rivera-Villanueva

Nayelli is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr Tatsuya Amano at the University of Queensland. She is very passionate about bats and language inclusion in science. Her research will be about tapping into non-English-language science for addressing global challenges including biodiversity conservation. She is the founder of, and responsible for an environmental outreach NGO in Mexico (BUM). Her group works to disseminate the importance of bats and tackle the myths surrounding them across all of Mexico. Her goal is that all people can access scientific knowledge and that academia recognizes the importance of including non-English-language evidence in research.

Ayontika De

Ayontika completed a research project for her master’s in environmental management in 2024. Ayontika’s passion for sustainable technologies and resilient communities led her to pursue bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Biotechnology and now a master’s in environmental management at The University of Queensland. She has worked across public, private, and not-for-profit sectors, addressing scientific issues in education and health, developing a unique skill set from these diverse experiences. Previously, as a Project Associate, she researched occupational health challenges faced by mining communities in Jharkhand, focusing on silicosis and its socioeconomic impact. Ayontika’s journey includes key collaborations with government and not-for-profit institutions to advance adaptive sustainable frameworks, policy development, and ethical research practices.

Haonan Wei

Haonan has completed her honours project in 2022 under the supervision of Dr Tatsuya Amano, which was about the content analysis of nature documentaries in China. Her childhood experiences, which had been filled with nature documentaries, provided her with vicarious connections to nature and thus drove her to study this subject. She has a strong interest in the role of popular science as an important medium to gain public attention to environmental issues.