Dr Jon Chamberlain, University of Essex

Conference Talk!
At our TFNetworkSpring21 conference on "Creating Value for Economies: Collaborate - Innovate - Educate". 

Dr Jon Chamberlain is a senior lecturer and applied research scientist in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at the University of Essex. His primary research interest is in the design of human-machine interaction and how groups of users work together to solve problems and display collective intelligence. 

He works across a number of disciplines, including information retrieval in healthcare, community resilience in social networks, citizen science for biomonitoring, games to collect human language information and using 3D technology to preserve coral reefs.

Synopsis
The rugged and complex structures of the chalk bed in Norfolk’s Cromer Shoal Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) provide habitat for a wide range of marine species. The edible crab Cancer pagurus (also known as Cromer crab) and lobster Homarus gammarus are common in this area and are target species for fisheries that are embedded in the history and culture of North Norfolk coastal towns.

In 2019, an investigation was undertaken by Natural England with the assistance of Essex researchers to categorise and quantify any impacts from human activity such as pot fishing, recreational angling and boat anchoring. Using a hand-held multicamera rig, Dr Jon Chamberlain led the dive team to rapidly survey the underwater areas and, back in the lab, reconstructed the environment using 3D models. This enabled very precise measurements of reef complexity to be correlated to biological measures taken in situ.

A co-authored report on the findings was released at the end of 2020. In response, several projects are underway for 2021 to adapt fishing practice and policy, to increase our knowledge of the area and to involve citizen scientists for large-scale data collection.

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