Ayesha is a Research Fellow at the Australian National University and Associate Fellow with the University of Queensland where she completed her PhD on optimal monitoring.

Her research focuses on using ecological knowledge to inform conservation decision-making processes. She is a conservation biologist interested in particular in decisions that take place in human-modified landscapes where there are usually multiple threats and conflicting objectives related to both biodiversity and social or economic factors. She has a particular interest in bird communities, fire ecology, invasive predators, networks of interacting species, and decision theory.

Ayesha’s work spans theoretical and applied ecology as well as decision-making for both monitoring and managing biodiversity, including ecosystem assessment, community dynamics and responses to anthropogenic change, prioritising threat mitigation actions for species recovery, monitoring effectiveness, and human-wildlife conflict.

She works on a number of these projects with CEED Researchers including Prof Hugh Possingham, Dr Jonathan Rhodes and  Prof David Lindenmayer.