Ailun Wang

Doctoral Researcher

I was born in the Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China. My hometown has a beautiful natural scenery and fascinating wildlife. I started to become interested in nature and wildlife when I was a little girl. Therefore, after I graduated from high school, I chose the Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics, the school of Natural Resources and Environmental Economics to undertake my undergraduate degree. My major was in Resource Environment and the Management of Urban and Rural Planning. After my Bachelors degree, I decided to complete my Masters degree at the University of Leicester, in the department of Geography. I chose Sustainable Management of Natural Resources to be my major, due to my interests in urban ecology. My thesis investigated the impact of traffic volume and traffic noise on the common pipistrelle (one of the most common bats in the UK) based on the city of Leicester. After I finished my dissertation, I had a strong interest in how urbanisation affects wildlife, and decided to continue my research on this topic.

Research Project - Toxoplasma in urban and rural areas.

After I graduated from the University of Leicester, I got a chance to do my PhD at the University of Reading, and joined the People and Wildlife Research Group. I'm interested in domestic cats because they can contribute to a devastating consequence of wildlife, especially in urban and rural areas. In addition, they are a definitive host of the parasite Toxoplasma, however, what we know about how domestic cats spread toxoplasma and how Toxoplasma changes their behaviour are still limited. Therefore, I choose to do my research on interactions between toxoplasma domestic cats, and trying to figure out how they interact in the spread of Toxoplasma in urban and rural areas.