Julius Bright Ross

Julius Bright Ross is a current Marshall Scholar studying for a PhD in Zoology at the University of Oxford. Born in Woodstock, NY, he was raised on Easter Island as part of a mixed Rapa Nui family, where he gained a deep appreciation for the fragility of ecosystems under anthropogenic strain and the relationship between land and culture.  Julius has dedicated the majority of his academic career to studying the former, carrying out independent study during his time as an undergraduate at Harvard on ungulates’ behavioral responses to climate change in the Italian Alps, and now nearing the end of a PhD dissertation on the sources of inter-individual differences in resilience to change in wild animal populations.  Julius has had the benefit of carrying out his PhD alongside brilliant researchers at Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), where he has added his voice to international conversations about the role of science in conservation policy and the importance of anti-racist approaches to conservation. Along with WildCRU’s Dr. Amy Dickman, he is now collaborating with Lion Landscapes, an NGO managing a diverse portfolio of lion conservation projects, to improve our understanding of how best to build a human dimension into conservation objectives, evaluation, and success.