Dr. Gillis is a wetland ecologist, specialising in the interactions between ecosystems at landscape, vegetation and sediment scales. Her interests lie in using our fundamental understanding of ecosystem connectivity in supporting ecosystem service provision and implementing nature-based solutions. Dr. Gillis’s research includes how singular and multi-stresses can impact on the functioning on wetlands and how this relates to carbon sequestration potential. Her research has a strong inter-disciplinary focus in answering key questions and finding solutions. By combining socio-empirical methods with quantitative ecological and bioassessments, this information can be fed back into the sustainable management of ecosystems and provide data for policy actions.
A facet of Dr. Gillis’s research is initiating NbS with a strong community involvement/ownership during the design stage. An essential aspect that needs to be considered in any wetland management project is developing policy that can build community resilience. A research highlight of Dr. Gillis’s was developing a toolbox using novel theory on wetland connectivity for management. This was designed to make fundamental ecosystem knowledge user orientated and therefore applicable for other stakeholders and able to support other policy ambitions.
Her work experience includes consultancy and NGO’s givinh her a broad experience in working with a large variety of stakeholders. Dr. Gillis has lived and worked in many small island development states in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. As well as performed fieldwork in every continent, Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore), South America (Brazil), East and West Coast of Africa (Zanzibar, Senegal), Australia, North America (Miami, Texas) and Europe.
Dr. Gillis gained her Ph.D. (2014) from Radboud University within the Ecoshape, Building with Nature project, investigating physical fluxes between coastal ecosystems in Asia. She completed her post-doctorate at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, researching the drivers of ecosystem service provision between connected aquatic ecosystems.
Dr. Gillis has worked on complex projects as a PI at global scales (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft project), regional scales (World Bank projects), and ecosystem scales (EU funded project). She has been active in several conferences, workshops and seminars as an attendee, organiser and key note speaker. Dr. Gillis has published extensively peer reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters.