James is a Reader in biodiversity theory at Imperial College London. He has 14 years of experience in modelling and simulation of ecological communities, drawing from an interdisciplinary background in maths, computing and biology. He has published 38 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on a wide range of topics including island biogeography, reef fish range sizes and tropical forest fragmentation. He is also a founding trustee of a charitable incorporated organisation “OneZoom” which has so far reached over a million individuals and aims to enhance public understanding of biodiversity, evolution and conservation issues. He is principle investigator on a £260K Leverhulme grant “Predicting Global Biodiversity with Mechanistic Simulation Models” and co-investigator on and a £2.4m NERC Emerging Chemical Risks Programme, as well as other projects including a new research programme in Atlantic salmon ecology.