PAR Group

Isabel Smallegange

Isabel Smallegange is a Senior Lecturer in Population Biology at the University of Newcastle, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences. She is also Group Lead of the Modelling, Evidence and Policy group, and Director of Culture & Inclusion for the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences.

Isabel’s research interests comprise a range of topics that include eco-evolutionary dynamics, life history theory, developmental plasticity and evolutionary demography. Her research aims at mechanistically linking ecology, evolution and development to explain why animals express which phenotypes under what conditions, and how this impacts population responses to environmental change, harvesting or fishing. Isabel develops demographic models that capture these responses and tests these in experiments or against field data from terrestrial and marine coldblooded animals (bulb mites, manta rays, reef sharks, skates). Isabel blogs about her research and other aspects of life in academia.

Within the Reimaging Leadership project, Isabel represents the Culture & Inclusion committee of the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences and, through this project, the Culture & Inclusion Committee aims to improve psychological safety within the School. In her research, Isabel studies non-human animal behaviour in laboratory experiments and computer simulations, investigating how early-life adversity impacts later-life and the ecology and evolution of animal populations. Within the Reimagining Leadership project, Isabel is keen to explore connections between her research field of evolutionary biology and that of human (organisational) behaviour, which is a growing, interdisciplinary research field.