My background is in software development and I came to Adelaide to try and apply my skills towards aiding our natural world and helping to conserve our amazing biodiversity. My wife has also been pursuing her PhD in Ecology, studying Malleefowl on the Eyre Peninsula. Both of us studying concurrently has been both highly rewarding and often challenging in many ways!

My PhD research has focussed on developing tools for improving the quality of biodiversity data collected by citizen scientists. I developed two mobile apps for iOS and android devices for The Great Koala Count in South Australia in 2016 and similarly for the Echidna Conservation Science Initiative (echidnaCSI) which began in 2017 and continues today. The echidnaCSI project was one of the 3 finalists for the 2021 Eureka Prize for Innovation in Citizen Science.

Results from these projects have demonstrated the value of the automatic collection of accurate observational metadata, especially location and date-time, especially when compared with other methods where these may, for example, be manually selected or entered. These can be useful for improving assessments of observer effort which is important information when assessing species’ populations. Recording citizen scientists’ search paths indicated potential for improved methods of CS project management, as search distributions and intensities could be used to highlight areas where coverage is lacking or already sufficient. Additionally, citizen science (CS) observations showed some spatial differences to scientific methods, as one might expect, and CS demonstrated resilience to disturbance by COVID-19 protections, when compared to scientific or traditional methods.

This research has, to date, resulted in the following peer-reviewed publications:

  • Stenhouse, A., Perry, T., Grützner, F., Koh, L.P., Lewis, M., 2022. COVID restrictions impact wildlife monitoring in Australia. Biological Conservation 267, 109470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109470
  • Stenhouse, A., Perry, T., Grützner, F., Lewis, M., Koh, L.P., 2021. EchidnaCSI – Improving monitoring of a cryptic species at continental scale using Citizen Science. Global Ecology and Conservation 28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01626
  • Perry, T., Stenhouse, A., Wilson, I., Perfetto, I., McKelvey, M. W., Coulson, M., Ankeny, R. A., Rismiller, P. D., Grützner, F., 2022. EchidnaCSI: engaging the public in research and conservation of the short-beaked echidna. PNAS February 1, 2022 119 (5) e2108826119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2108826119
  • Perry, T., West, E., Eisenhofer, R., Stenhouse, A., Wilson, I., Laming, B., Rismiller, P., Shaw, M., Grutzner, F., 2022. Characterising the Gut Microbiomes in Wild and Captive Short-beaked Echidnas Reveals Diet-Associated Changes. Submitted to Frontiers in Microbiology.
  • Stenhouse, A., Roetman, P., Lewis, M., Koh, L.P., 2020. Koala Counter: Recording Citizen Scientists’ search paths to Improve Data Quality. Global Ecology and Conservation 24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01376

I’ve also been experimenting with developing user-friendly systems which use machine learning for image classification. This was originally inspired by the large collections of images being collected in various projects and the difficulties of processing these in a timely manner. I’m planning on developing these further, ideally for use in “the wild”. Since submitting my thesis, I’m now awaiting thesis reviews and looking for work!