Ty Loft
Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Geography and the Environment
Supervisors: Dr Imma Oliveras, Dr Nicola Stevens, and Prof Yadvinder Malhi
Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Geography and the Environment
Supervisors: Dr Imma Oliveras, Dr Nicola Stevens, and Prof Yadvinder Malhi
Mapping the impacts of land use change on animal- and disturbance-mediated ecosystem function across African savannas
Academic Profile
Ty Loft is a DPhil candidate and Clarendon Scholar in the Environmental Change Institute and Oxford Ecosystems Lab. His research investigates how African ecosystems respond to land use change, focusing on how fire and animals control ecosystem functioning. His work advances the metrics that track biodiversity loss, by combining methods in remote sensing, Bayesian modeling, and ecosystem energetics. In addition, Ty leads the mapping analysis for the Biodiversity Intactness Index for Africa (BII4Africa), a project that bridges the gap between biodiversity experts and decision-makers by creating the first practical map of biodiversity loss spanning sub-Saharan Africa.
Ty holds a master’s in Biodiversity Conservation from the University of Oxford and a B.S. in Foreign Affairs, summa cum laude, from Georgetown University, and previously served as a Fulbright Scholar in Zimbabwe. Prior to Oxford, he worked on international ocean security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank in Washington, DC.
Publications
- Loft, T., Stevens, N., Gonçalves, F.M.P. and Oliveras Menor, I. (2024) Extensive woody encroachment altering Angolan miombo woodlands despite cropland expansion and frequent fires. Global Change Biology, 30(2): e17171.
