Vice President & Chair of Library Committee
Year of Fellowship, 2019
Seirian is a Professor of Behavioural Ecology at University College London.
Her work research sits at the interface of behavioural ecology, biodiversity and conservation. She uses a combination of field ecology and genomic techniques to address questions about how and why animals live in societies. She is especially interested in social wasps, and is working hard to raise the profile of these ecologically important insects, among both scientific and lay communities.
As part of these efforts, she co-founded the Big Wasp Survey in 2017 – a citizen science project designed to engage the public with the diversity and importance of social wasps in their back yard; and in 2022, she published a popular science book, “Endless Forms: Why You Should Love Wasps”.
She holds a BSc and PhD from University College London, has worked as a postdoc in Copenhagen, held independent research fellowships from the Smithsonian Institute, RCUK, and the Zoological Society of London. She was Senior Lecturer at University of Bristol form 2012-2016; Reader at University College London from October 2016-Oct 2020; and Professor of Behavioural Ecology at UCL from October 2020 until present. She was awarded a L’Oreal for Women in Science Fellowship Award in 2007.
Seirian is a passionate science communicator and works hard to help tackle inequality in science: she co-founded Soapbox Science in 2011 to help promote the visibility and profile of women in science. This initiative has expanded nationally and internationally to over 25 destinations worldwide involving over 600 female scientists. Through this initiative, she has received several awards, including recognition from the UK Prime Minister (Points of Light Award), a Silver Medal from the Zoological Society of London and the first Equality and Diversity award from the British Ecological Society.
