Ms Stephanie Holt

My role at the Natural History Museum's Centre for UK Nature encompasses developing UK natural history training programmes, primarily aimed at the amatuer naturalist community, research and fieldwork investigating the conservation applications of new techniques in genomics, and public engagement with science in the media and at the Museum. Recently I have also been the scientific advisor to the Department for Education on the subject content of the Natural History GCSE.

I am a Fellow and current council member and trustee of the British Naturalists Association, a Fellow and past council member of the Linnean Society. I also currently sit on the nominations committee for the Linnean Society. I am a full member of the Chartered Institute of Ecologists and Environmental Managers, and have previously served two terms on their Training, Education and Career Development Committee and was a founder committee member of their South East England Section.

Prior to working at the Museum, my ecological career spanned local government, NGO’s, academia, and private consultancy with a focus an specialism in UK bat species, identification and survey, but also UK herptiles, plants, and some invertebrate groups.

My research interests now focus on the history of natural history in the late eighteenth-century, particularly the work, networks, and legacy of the naturalist Rev Gilbert White (1720-1793). I am Associate Editor for Archives of Natural History, the journal of the Society for the History of Natural History, and am currently undertaking an MSt in Historical Studies at the University of Oxford, funded by the British Society for the History of Science. In October I will be embarking on a DPhil at the same institution.