- Variations in the motivations of environmental citizen scientists
- The diversity of participants in environmental citizen science
- Assessing SEI's policy engagement
- Ethical dilemmas when using citizen science for early detection of invasive tree pests and diseases
- The mental health benefits of purposeful activities in public green spaces in urban and semi-urban neighbourhoods: a mixed-methods pilot and proof of concept study
Alison Dyke came to work with SEI in 2011 following over 10 years as an independent research and policy consultant working in the fields of community woodlands and wild harvests.
Alison works on nature-society relations, particularly to interactions between humans and trees, biosecurity, plant health and wild harvests together with sustainability behaviours in relation to housing and community. Alison has a particular interest in public engagement and citizen science and has worked as a community scientist on the OPAL (Open Air Laboratories) project where she has been instrumental in the Tree Health Survey and accredited learning programmes.
Alison key expertise and interests are in: social and cultural values of trees, biosecurity and plant health, wild harvests, ethnobotany, citizen science (particularly the study of citizen science and participants motivations), public engagement, environmental sustainability behaviours, social network analysis, environmental policy analysis.
Alison has previously worked as an independent researcher and consultant on participative adaptive management issues relating to forestry for clients such as local enterprise agencies, Forest Research, The Forestry Commission and Scottish Natural Heritage and also for worked for Reforesting Scotland on its ‘Wild Harvests’ project
Alison gained a PhD in Political Ecology from the University of Glasgow in 2006 titled ‘The Practice, Politics and Ecology of Non Timber Forest Products in Scotland’. She also has an MSc in Forest Science from the University of Edinburgh and an undergraduate degree in Geography from the University of Glasgow.
Since joining SEI Alison has developed research on environmental behaviours including citizen science, public engagement and governance aspects of plant health and environmental behaviour change in relation to housing.