Bio

I’m an entomologist, taxonomist, ecologist, palaeontologist and currently a lead organiser of the British Isles Lacewing and Allies Recording Scheme.

My research interests fall into three areas:

1) Evolution of Insects: Past, Present, and Future

• Insect Phylogeny and Evolution.
• Insect biodiversity origins and change over geological time and how this can inform on the current insect crisis and their conservation.
• Evolution of Neuropterida.

2) Distribution, Ecology, and Conservation of British Isles Lacewings and their Allies (Lacewings (Neuroptera), Snakeflies (Raphidioptera), Alderflies (Megaloptera), Scorpionflies (Mecoptera), and Snow Fleas (Mecoptera))

• Distribution of the species of Lacewings and their Allies in the British Isles: Collecting and analysing data from the Lacewing and Allies Recording Scheme, iRecord, recorders, fieldwork, and museum collections to assess species distribution.
• Ecology of Lacewings and their Allies in the British Isles: many species lifecycle, habitats, and ecology remain unknown.
• Conservation of Lacewings and allies in the British Isles: assessing species conservation status and developing conservation strategies for at risk species.

3) Biological Recording/Monitoring

• Undertaking biological surveys of animals (insects, arthropods, birds, bats) and habitats (terrestrial and freshwater).
• Using natural history collections in museums to gather historic data on species distribution.
• A lead organiser of the British Isles Lacewing and Allies Recording Scheme.
• National verifier for Lacewings and Allies on iRecord.
• Teaching and public engagement – new methods, citizen science, biological recording, public lectures, workshops, and webinars.

From being very young, I have always had a love of Natural History, especially insects. In 2005, I gained a BSc (Hons) degree in Geology from the University of Manchester, where I became very interested in palaeontology. This led to a PhD on the “Neuropterida of the Lower Cretaceous of Southern England, with a study on fossil and extant Raphidoptera” that was completed in 2010, also at the University of Manchester. After my PhD, I stayed at the university and worked as a part-time teaching assistant, and later a curatorial assistant (JISC 3D British type fossil project) at the National Museum of Wales. After working in the Museum in Cardiff, I was awarded a 2 year Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to work on fossil mantispids at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany. After the fellowship, I worked for 3 years in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork, Ireland. From Cork I briefly went back to the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany to work on mantispids and their early evolution, as part of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Return Fellowship. After this I worked as a postdoctoral researcher, focusing on insect phylogeny, in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester, UK with Dr Russell Garwood.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society . To date, I have described more than 50 new species of fossil insect, and have had the honour of having two Mesozoic fossil insect named after me – Cionocoleus jepsoni Jarzembowski et al., 2013 a beetle from the Purbeck Limestone Group, UK and Proraphidia jepsoni Lyu et al., 2020 a snakefly from the Yixian Formation, China. I have published both scientific and popular science articles, and co-authored two books on fossil insects.

Research profiles: Researchgate, Academia.edu, Mendeley