dr. Y.C. (Ying-Chi) Chan, PhD

I was born and grew up in Hong Kong, a city at the south coast of China just at the edge of the tropics. I did my Bachelor degree in Environmental Life Science at the University of Hong Kong. My interest in avian ecology has motivated me to further my studies abroad, and I was very fortunate to receive the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship to join the Evolutionary Biology Master Programme. My Master's research project with Theunis Piersma has brought me back to my 'flyway' where migratory birds are in steep decline because of human activities. After a few years of searching for funding (during which I collected preliminary data and learnt the art of grant writing), in 2015 I can finally start a PhD to study how migratory shorebirds are impacted by, and how will they adapt to, the rapidly diminishing habitats at their fuelling stops in China.