About Professor Mark Davies
I am interested in how physiology and behaviour can impact system dynamics (especially those vulnerable to climate change effects), including understanding the evolution of co-operative behaviours and making use of agent-based computational techniques. I also have a research interest in higher education, particularly assessment, and I am a National Teaching Fellow.
Teaching and supervision
I supervise doctoral students across various environmental science disciplines, typically related to health.
Research
Much of my work concerns biological adaptations to an extreme environment: tropical rocky shores, particularly the upper shore where rock temperatures regularly exceed 60oC. I use biological computation methods to model behaviour in response to stress and unravel the basis of decision-making processes.
Latterly, I have become interested in how students, academic staff and the ‘elite’ in higher education understand assessment. Research here has established that ‘assessment’, a concept used widely in all education sectors, is very poorly understood. There is little commonality between and within groups of students, academic staff, and academic developers operating at a national level. If staff don’t sing with a single voice on assessment, how can we expect our students to understand what we expect from them?
Areas of expertise
- Climate change biology
- Health effects of anthropogenic environmental factors
- Assessment in higher education.
Further information
- National Teaching Fellow
- Associate Editor, Journal of Molluscan Studies
- Evaluator, European Union Framework Programme 7 and Horizon 2020
- Evaluator for many national research bodies in Europe
- Accreditor and Principal Fellow, The Higher Education Academy
- Reviewer/Auditor, The Quality Assurance Agency
- Review Chair and reviewer for national quality bodies in, for example, Albania, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Macao, and Saudi Arabia
Membership of external bodies
- President and Councillor, the Malacological Society of London (2009–2012)
- Council member, Unitas Malacologica (2010–2016)
- Member, Marine Biological Association of the UK
- Member, The Ray Society