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Meet the Expert: Professor Adam Hart
Professor Adam Hart
Adam Hart is an ecologist, conservation scientist and entomologist, and is the University’s Professor of Science Communication.
Adam is an award-winning wildlife expert and a regular on BBC documentaries, Radio 4 broadcasts and a long-running World Service series, providing expert insight on ants and bees through to glowing lizards and trophy hunting. He once wrote the book ‘The Life of Poo’!
Professor Adam Hart is a Professor of Science Communication in the School of Education, Health and Sciences.
Early research years
As the first member of his family to go to university, he felt lucky to be accepted to study Natural Sciences (specialising in Zoology) at Cambridge. He was a state school student from Brixham in Devon, and it was certainly a “thrown in at the deep end” experience, but he thoroughly enjoyed his time there.
After that he studied for a PhD in Sheffield. His research focused on work organisation in ants and bees, which led to a postdoctoral position in Sheffield investigating conflict in colonies of the world’s largest ant. Much of this research took place abroad, and he travelled frequently to Panama, Mexico, Brazil and Denmark during this period.
Celebrating 20 years at UoG
After a year as a lecturer in Sheffield, he moved to UoG in 2005, taking up a lecturer position in the newly formed Biosciences group. Since then, he hasn’t looked back. His research has expanded considerably to include general ecology, citizen science, African wildlife and conservation. Meanwhile, his science communication endeavours have expanded from some work with schools back in 2005 to BBC TV documentaries, regular Radio 4 broadcasts, a long-running World Service series, countless podcasts and articles, popular science books, talks, festivals, and much more besides.
Over 140 research papers
Adam’s early research focussed on how insects like ants and bees cooperate in colonies and how they resolve conflicts among themselves. Since then, Adam has published more than 140 papers on a remarkably wide range of topics, including bird nesting biology, grassland management, wasp biology, neocolonialism in conservation, wasp ecology, ecological methods, statistics and even a lizard that glows!
The Life of Poo
In 2015, Adam wrote a book about poo and the hidden world of bacteria. The Life of Poo (or why you should think twice about shaking hands) is a light-hearted popular science book explaining how bacteria play a central part in our lives, both good and bad. Bad can cause illness and death, but good can help us digest our food and educate our immune systems. Read more about this book which is still available to buy online.
Saving the world’s greatest predators
More recently, Professor Hart has penned two other books, Unfit for Purpose, where he explores the mismatch between our fundamental biology and the modern world we have created, and The Deadly Balance, where Adam explores how we might both conserve the world’s predators and live safely alongside them.
Award for Trophy Hunting book
Most recently, he co-authored a book called Trophy Hunting, which examines the role of hunting in conservation. It was a fantastic honour for Adam when it was awarded the Marsh Ecology Book of the Year by the British Ecological Society for “the book that has had the greatest influence on the science of ecology in any two-year period”.
Find out more
To find out more about the research and publications Adam has produced, check out his profile on ORCID. Here are his three latest publications:
- From tweets to tings: Dissimilarity in recorded species community between social media platforms and implications for resource-limited conservation
- Evaluating key evidence and formulating regulatory alternatives regarding the UK’s Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill
- Do you see what I see? Variation in detection, identification and enumeration of mammals during transect surveys
Get in touch
To get in contact with Adam check his UoG profile and don’t forget to drop him a follow on X – @AdamHartScience
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