Simon Gillings

Principal Data Scientist

Simon Gillings

Contact

Simon works with colleagues across BTO to provide strategic leadership, analytical input and design input into the development of data products for internal and external audiences. In parallel he leads the development of tools for acoustic monitoring of birds.

Interests & Responsibilities

Simon's main interests are in developing methods and applications that turn BTO data into accessible, robust and visually appealing products for different audiences and stakeholders, to improve knowledge and outcomes for bird populations.

He is keen to integrate different data to produce improved insights, for example to contribute to Environmental Impact Assessments through the production of BTO Data Reports.

In parallel, Simon works with Stuart Newson to develop bioacoustic monitoring tools implemented through the BTO Acoustic Pipeline. Simon's work includes the use of deep learning to develop tools to identify birds and other organisms in audio data to support conservation and management work.

Other Information

Simon is a keen birder and sound recordist, including using passive sound recording to monitor nocturnal bird migration. Simon maintains nocmig.com as a resource for others interested in starting to record nocturnal bird migration. A deep understanding of the identification of birds by flight calls led Simon to develop tools for automated species identification using machine learning.

Qualifications

Recent BTO Publications

Heywood, J.J.N., Massimino, D., Balmer, D.E., Kelly, L., Noble, D.G., Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Woodcock, P., Wotton, S., Gillings, S. & Harris, S.J. 2023. The Breeding Bird Survey 2022. British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford, Norfolk ISBN: 978-1-912642-53-3 36pp
Noble, D.G. & Gillings, S. 2023. Production of smoothed population trends when a key year of data is missing.. Research Report no. 748. British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford, UK ISBN: 9781912642434 12pp
Clark, J.A., Gillings, S., Clark, N.A., Cole, K.B., Breese, G., Woods, J.L., Bellman, H.A. & Robinson, R.A. 2023. How important is it to standardise the measured mass of shorebirds weighed at varying intervals after capture?. Wader Study 130 (part 1) View at journal website (DOI: 10.18194/ws.00297)
Martay, B., Pearce-Higgings, J.W., Harris, S.J. & Gillings, S. 2022. Breeding ground temperature rises, more than habitat change, are associated with spatially variable population trends in two species of migratory bird. Ibis View at journal website (DOI: 10.1111/ibi.13101)
Harris, S.J., Massimino, D., Balmer, D.E., Kelly, L., Noble, D.G., Pearce-Higgins, J.W., Woodcock, P., Wotton, S. & Gillings, S. 2022. The Breeding Bird Survey 2021. British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford, Norfolk ISBN: 978-1-912642-37-3 36pp
Gillings, S. & Harris, S.J. 2022. Estimating the carbon footprint of citizen science biodiversity monitoring. People & Nature View at journal website (DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10333)
View all BTO publications for this author

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