I am a marine biologist. My background is in benthic ecology, so I mostly work with animals and ecosystems associated with the seabed. My focus is on 'low data' systems from the shallow intertidal to the deep-sea.  I find working in these systems to be both challenging and interesting - so little is known as to make each discovery a game changer. My deep-sea research is related to mitigating the impacts of deep-sea mining. A lot of my shallow water research focuses on the interactions between animals across trophic levels. This has led to a relatively recent focus on the critically endangered flapper skate - who existed at the top of Ireland's benthic food chain. Through this, I helped establish the regional flapper skate working group and lead on a lot of research projects associated with increasing our understanding of these animals to further their conservation. This all ties into marine policy, so I guess you could say that my research on low data systems works to fill knowledge gaps by governments, allowing them to batter tailor environmental management.