Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Aafke Schipper, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science, and coordinator of the Master's specialisation Environment & Sustainability. The main focus of my research and teaching is on biodiversity. I aim to understand how biodiversity responds to human threats and what we can do to effectively conserve or, even better, restore biodiversity. In the Master's programme, I coordinate and teach the course Biodiversity Assessment, where students obtain the knowledge and skills required to quantify and interpret large-scale patterns and trends in biodiversity.
Why did you choose to study/work in this field? What makes this field so interesting?
My main drive for this field is in my concern about the human-driven global decline in biodiversity. I want to understand how different threats contribute to this decline, and even more how we can use this knowledge to identify effective conservation measures.
What are you currently doing your own research on?
My research is quite broad: it covers various species groups (plants, mammals, freshwater fish species) and multiple threats (land use, climate change, pollution). To understand how these threats affect biodiversity, I analyse monitoring data and I build simulation models.
What advice do you have for students making their study choice?
My sole advice for choosing a study: trust your intuition or gut feeling. Just do what you find interesting and worthwhile, without too much consideration of what makes a 'smart' or 'strategic' choice. Even if it turns out that the programme is not exactly what you thought or hoped for, there's plenty of opportunity to keep on learning and adjust your path afterwards. Personally, I discovered during my BSc and MSc in earth sciences that I was actually more interested in ecology, and I gradually turned into an ecologist through my career choices after graduation.