Kathryn Arnold
Professor of Ecology

Profile

Biography

• Professor Kathryn Arnold is an academic in the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of York. Kathryn works at the intersection of science, policy and regulation, with a core interest in biodiversity conservation.
  
  In the UK and Australia, she has held a variety of positions. Currently, Kathryn is the Co-lead of the Food, Water and Waste Theme for the York Environmental Sustainability Institute. She also leads the NERC-funded CAREERS project : Citizen science for Advancing Racial Equity in Environmental Research. This builds on her previous NERC funded work on racism in the environmental sciences and leading Athena SWAN and other gender equity activities within academia and government.
  
  National roles include being a member of the Research Excellence Framework Sub-panel 7: Member Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences and the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Talent Panel. Internationally, she was recently a judge for the L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science, Rising Talent Prize (Great Britain and Ireland) and an Official observer at United Nations Climate Change Conference COP29 in Azerbaijan.
  
  Linked to her interest in postgraduate training, Kathryn sits on the Management Committee of the UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Safe Artificial Intelligence Systems (SAINTS) and is Co-Investigator on Physics-led Applications for Nuclear Technology Programme (PLANET) – a Doctoral Focal Award. From 2020-2024, she held the post of the Dean of York Graduate Research School where she had oversight of the policy and strategy for postgraduate research at the University of York. Her flagship project, the Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education (YCEDE) was a large (£4 million+) collaborative project involving five Yorkshire Universities, 12 Doctoral Training Partnerships and multiple external partners. Finishing in March 2026, YCEDE was dedicated to widening access to postgraduate research for UK black, Asian and minority ethnic applicants. YCEDE is shortlisted for a 2026 Times Higher Education Award.
  
  Previously, Professor Arnold worked at Defra heading up the EU Exit strategy team in the Resources and Waste division.
  
  Her career started with a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK and a PhD from the University of Queensland, Australia. After holding research positions in Australia and the UK, she was awarded a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship at the University of Glasgow and the University of York.
  
  Kathryn has very diverse research interests and a successful track record in PGR supervision. Current and recent projects involve fieldwork in forests and wetlands of Cambodia, Thailand, Outer Hebrides and Yorkshire. She is able to supervise postgraduate researchers in a wide range of topics including biodiversity conservation, wildlife ecology, avian biology, One Health and environmental ecotoxicology.
  

Career

Teaching

Undergraduate

Kathryn teaches across the UG and masters programmes. 

Modules that she contributes to include Ecological Principles and Biodiversity and Society.

Postgraduate

Kathryn coordinates the Ecosystem Service, Conservation and Protection modules at masters level. 

Research

Overview

For 20+ years, Kathryn has been working at the intersection of science, policy and regulation. Her academic background is in Biological Sciences, specifically ecology. She has become an interdisciplinary scholar working with researchers and practitioners from a range of disciplines including political scientists, economists, social scientists and chemists. She has established research networks across the UK, Asia and Europe.

Since joining the University of York in 2010, Kathryn has been studying the responses of wildlife and ecosystems to environmental and social perturbations. Her research group is currently investigating the effects of environmental change, including chemical contaminants and habitat management, on biodiversity and ecosystem services. This involves integrating ideas and approaches from ecology, social sciences, conservation physiology and ecotoxicology.

Publications

Selected publications

Arnold, KE, Laing, G, McMahon, BJ et al. 2024. The need for One Health systems-thinking approaches to understand multiscale dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. The Lancet Planetary Health, 8, e124-e133. 

Murray, A., Royauté, R., Stevens, G.,Roberts, C, Arnold, KE 2024. Individual flexibility in group foraging behaviour of reef manta rays (Mobula alfredi). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 78, 76 

Maskrey, DK, Sneddon, LU, Arnold, KE, Wolfenden, DCC & Thomson, JS 2020. The impact of personality, morphotype and shore height on temperature-mediated behavioural responses in the beadlet anemone Actinia equina. J. Anim Ecol 89, 2311-2324

Mitchell, LJ, Kohler, T, White, PCL & Arnold, KE 2020. High interindividual variability in habitat selection and functional habitat relationships in European nightjars over a period of habitat change. Ecology and Evolution. 10: 5932-5945.

Agerstrand, M., Arnold, K. E., Balshine, S., Brodin, T., Brooks, B., et al. 2019. Emerging investigator series: Use of behavioural endpoints in regulation of chemicals. Environmental Sciences: Processes and Impacts. 2:49-65. doi: 10.1039/c9em00463g

Lennon, R, Peach, WJ, Dunn, J, Shore, RF, Pereira, G, Sleep, D, Dodd, S, Wheatley, C, Arnold, KE & Brown, CD. 2020. From seeds to plasma: confirmed exposure of multiple farmland bird species to clothianidin during sowing of winter cereals. Science of the Total Environment, vol. 723, 138056.  doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138056

Murray, A, Garrud, E, Ender, I, Lee-Brooks, K, Atkins, R, Lynam, R, Arnold, KE, et al. G 2019, Protecting the million-dollar mantas; creating an evidence-based code of conduct for manta ray tourism interactions. J Ecotourism. 

Swift, BMC, Bennett, M, Waller, K, Dodd, C, Murray, A, Gomes, RL, Humphreys, B, Hobman, JL, Jones, MA, Whitlock, SE, Mitchell, LJ, Lennon, RJ & Arnold, KE 2019. Anthropogenic environmental drivers of antimicrobial resistance in wildlife. Science of the Total Environment, vol. 649, pp. 12-20. (41)

McCann, CM, Christgen, B, Roberts, JA, Su, J-Q, Arnold, KE, Gray, ND, Zhu, Y-G & Graham, DW 2019. Understanding drivers of antibiotic resistance genes in High Arctic soil ecosystems. Environment International.