Biography
Andrew Balmford's research focuses on the costs and benefits of conservation, how best to reconcile conservation and farming, examining what works in conservation, reconnecting people and nature, conservation planning, and quantifying the changing state of nature. Focusing on developing countries, he tries to tackle these questions through fieldwork, analyses of large databases, and modeling, and strive to work with colleagues in other disciplines. He is also extremely keen on building close working relationships between conservation scientists and conservation practitioners, and so co-founded the Cambridge Conservation Forum; is closely involved in the Cambridge Conservation Initiative; and with Rhys Green, Rosie Trevelyan and Shireen Green run the annual Student Conference on Conservation Science.
After ten years as an undergraduate, PhD student and research fellow in Cambridge, he was a research fellow at the Institute of Zoology in London, and then a lecturer at the University of Sheffield. In 1998 he returned to Cambridge's Zoology Department, where he teaches conservation science, and helps to run the Conservation Science Group.