Dr Claire Burke

Dr Claire Burke (born 1987)

Dr Claire Burke – Astro-ecologist at Liverpool John Moores University – brings her knowledge of how things work in space back down to Earth to help preserve our planet’s vital biodiversity. As a teenager, she was hugely inspired by her physics teacher, a woman who taught about the life cycle of stars, Burke found it so fascinating she went on to study astrophysics. 

Her PhD was in figuring out how the most massive galaxies in the Universe formed and evolved. From there she’s applied her physics skills to help understand how climate change is affecting extreme weather, and how to help monitor endangered animals. Using drones, machine learning and thermal cameras we can find and track endangered animals. In thermal images animals glow in a similar way to stars and galaxies, so we can use techniques from astrophysics to find them 

She says “Science is a team effort. I’m an astronomer and I work with drones and ecologists to do conservation. This means I need to work with other scientists who know about how drones work or how animals behave, so we need to have a big team with a variety of skills.” 

“In school, physics, chemistry and biology are very separate subjects. The truth is, that most innovation happens when two or more different subjects meet together. Places where different knowledge and perspectives can mix. This can give you a leading edge or an insight to see things differently, it’s amazing what can happen when different scientific worlds collide, as I can attest from my astro-ecology project.”