Iris is a 24-year-old conservation scientist and National Geographic Young Explorer, interested in interdisciplinary topics that contribute to reconciling nature conservation and human well-being.

She is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, studying faunal ecosystem services and disservices in agroecosystems in India. She is aiming to identify agricultural practices and policies that promote the delivery and resilience of ecosystem (especially pollination) service provisioning, whilst being of least cost to biodiversity and minimising human-wildlife conflict.

Iris holds an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management from the University of Oxford, and a BSc in Biological Sciences (Ecology) from the University of Edinburgh.

She has led and participated in research expeditions across the tropics and is deeply passionate about scientific exploration, tropical conservation and human-nature coexistence. Her previous research includes a study of chimpanzee diet and tool-use in Uganda for her undergraduate thesis, a 500km ‘mega-transect’ survey across the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and an assessment of wildlife corridors at the border between the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado savannah in Brazil.

Her expeditions and fieldwork have been generously supported by a variety of grants, including a National Geographic Early Careers Grant and a Scientific Exploration Society award for Inspiration and Scientific Trailblazing.

Iris has written numerous articles about her research and expeditions (see Unreasonable, The Naked Scientist, Sidetracked etc.), spoken on 21st-century exploration at the TEDx Edinburgh Student Speakers Choice Awards, and was the youngest speaker at the Global Biodiversity Festival 2020, where she featured alongside leading conservation practitioners and policy-makers, including the Director-General of WWF and National Geographic explorer-in-residence Sylvia Earle.

Contact: irisberger1996@gmail.com