Dreaming Big

Dr Hannah Mumby recently joined Pembroke as a Junior Research Fellow. She previously studied at King’s College, Cambridge, and at the University of Sheffield and in Myanmar for her PhD on ecology, demography and stress of Asian elephants. Her research now focuses on African elephants.

When did you first decide that you wanted to study elephants?

I took a circuitous route because my dream was really to be either David Attenborough or Indiana Jones. My original interest was in what it means to be human, so I studied anthropology as an undergraduate. I wanted to work with something I could quantify, so I went into biological anthropology, studying humans with primates as a comparative framework.

I became more generally interested in species that had evolved a long life, a big brain, a very intense social life and complex communication system, but on a completely separate evolutionary trajectory to humans. Some of the options were whales and elephants, and I chose elephants. I went out to Africa to intern with a very famous elephant scientist called Iain Douglas-Hamilton, and he got me hooked.

Does your work involve a lot of travel?

I’ve been really lucky to travel so much for my research on elephants. During my PhD, I was mainly working in Myanmar, but I did my lab work in Chiang Mai in Thailand, and I’ve given talks about elephants in India. My sister lives out in Hong Kong, and she has a group of high school students called the Bull Squad who are helping me with social media and advertising my projects and my work to the local community there, because Hong Kong is a major ivory port. They translate everything into Chinese.

I’m travelling to South Africa soon to my new field site just outside of Kruger National Park, in the Limpopo. I decided to focus on African elephants because the number of illegal killings is now reaching the proportions it was at in the 70s and 80s, before we cracked down on ivory poaching – about a hundred thousand African elephants have been killed illegally in the last three years. I’m aiming to look at male social relationships and behaviour, and how that links into becoming a ‘problem elephant’, for instance with crop-raiding.

Although my interest was initially theoretical, I think that with charismatic, endangered megafauna, you have a responsibility to be an advocate, in a way, because as an ecologist a lot of the parameters you’re looking at are relevant to conservation. That information shouldn’t only be available to scientists, it should be available to the wider public. We humans are such a huge influence on the world these creatures live in and it’s effectively our choice whether they survive or not.

What attracted you to the Junior Research Fellowship at Pembroke?

It was mainly a pragmatic decision, in that I knew what research I wanted to do – I had a strong vision for my research and I saw a JRF at Cambridge as an opportunity to have a lot of research independence at a very early stage in my career. JRFs are very competitive, and it’s hard to know what different Colleges are looking for, so I applied for as many as possible. The interview at Pembroke was very tough. I very much thought, oh no, I’ve messed it up! After the interview I bought a huge bag of chocolate and got on the first train back to Sheffield, but then they called me and told me I’d been accepted. And it seemed beyond perfect, because it seems like such a lovely place and there are a lot of interesting zoologists here – Nick Davies, Tim Weil and others… And the Zoology Department is just across the street.

I was also lucky that after I got the Fellowship at Pembroke, I was offered a Society in Science – Branco Weiss Fellowship to fund my research. If you want to be independent, you have to fund your project, not just your salary. And I have grand designs on saving the elephants, so I need money!

What do you think of Pembroke so far?

I’ve already been to a couple of College dinners. I went to the Master’s admission dinner, and I went to the Matriculation dinner for the undergrads. A couple of weeks ago, it was my own ceremony for joining the Fellowship. It was in the Chapel and I had to say this oath in Latin. I also have to get used to the gowns – I got mine second-hand, and it used to belong to someone even taller than me, so I keep tripping over it. There are some interesting traditions here, but the fact is that everyone is so relaxed about it that it’s not a big deal. The Master was making jokes at the Fellowship ceremony, in between the Latin, and he seemed so friendly.

Knowing Cambridge a bit, and knowing that each College has its distinct character, I previously saw Pembroke as kind of cosy-looking, and all the people you meet here reinforce that because they’re very friendly. It’s always possible to be intimidated by these things, but people do their best to help you feel at home.

It’s also nice that the College is so close to my department. It was quite exciting moving all my stuff in, when I officially arrived, and then getting my card and realising I can just cross the road from the Zoology Department and beep my card and come straight in here, and it’s so tranquil.

My favourite thing about Pembroke has probably been meeting the people who work here – the staff and the students, and the other Fellows have been absolutely lovely… Even the cat! Really, this is a community. You can have all the nice buildings and all the great books that you want, but it’s the people that really make it a community.

What are your plans for the future?

In the next three years, the plan is to invest a lot in this new research on African elephants, and to do a good bit of fieldwork. And also to ensure that my research is carrying the widest possible impact, so I want to collaborate with NGOs and with local people in elephant range countries and ivory-market countries. And to establish myself as someone who can do all this stuff, if it’s actually possible. I think during this Fellowship it will become apparent whether I’m going to be a basic scientist with a lot of interactions with policy-makers and conservation bodies, or I’m going to go more into conservation science and use a strong grounding in basic ecology to inform conservation practices. The way I came into things was definitely from a theoretical perspective, but my research is becoming more applied all the time.

What advice would you offer to current students who are thinking about a career in academia?

My advice would be to approach people and not be scared of asking questions about things that interest you. I think it was partly a personality thing for me, that I was quite shy, and that I was scared to approach people who were more senior than me. I would think, they’re so busy, why would they want to talk to me? And what I’ve realised now is that people always appreciate it when you talk to them. If people approach me now and show a genuine interest in my research, I really value it, and I will keep them in mind for when opportunities come up later. So I would say, put yourself forward; if there’s something you’re interested in, you don’t have anything to lose.

Hannah’s latest research paper was published on the 14th of October this year.

You can also find out more about her research here.