New member of staff – Freya Josephine Coursey

Foto: Privat

Hello everyone!

My name is Freya, and I’m just starting a PhD in terrestrial ecology with Dr Adéle Mennerat as my supervisor. I’m Scottish, but I moved to Bergen in 2019 after completing a Masters of Research in ecology from Glasgow University. Since then I’ve had a million different jobs: photographer, fieldworker, bartender, DJ, art technician, waitress, research assistant… I’m looking forward to just focusing on the PhD now!

Some of you may have seen me around BIO before: I’ve worked on and off as a research assistant for Adéle since 2020, helping with projects on both nesting birds and salmon lice. Birds are my passion, and I’m lucky enough to have been involved in six different avian research projects since completing my MRes, including shorebirds in Svalbard and passerines at Oxford.

For this PhD, I will use blue tits and great tits as the study species. I will be looking at how they interact with their prey and parasites, and how these relationships are affected by climate change and other anthropogenic stresses. Fieldwork will mostly be conducted at Bergen Arboretum and Botanisk Hage, but will include other locations around the city, and maybe even in other countries…

See you around! (And let me know if you want to talk about birds!)