Joshua Powell

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Joshua Powell
Powell in Kyrgyzstan
Born16 July 1993 (1993-07-16) (age 30)
Alma mater
AwardsCF

Joshua John Powell CF (born 16 July 1993) is a British conservation biologist.[1][2] He is one of the faces of WWF's #WWFVoices campaign on global biodiversity.[3]

Education[edit]

Powell attended Cranbrook School, Kent.[4] Powell subsequently attended the University of Nottingham and graduated with a first-class Honours Bachelor of Science degree in geography in 2014,[5] before receiving a Thouron Award to complete his master's degree at the University of Pennsylvania.[6][7]

Career[edit]

Powell received a UK Churchill Fellowship in 2017 to study island conservation strategy in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji,[8][9] followed by South Georgia and the Falkland Islands.[10] In 2021, Powell produced and featured in Saving Britain's Islands, a short educational film on island conservation, funded by the British Ecological Society.[11] The film featured conservation projects in New Zealand and South Georgia.[12]

Powell then received a grant from the National Geographic Society to establish Rangers Without Borders, a conservation research program he subsequently founded with Peter Coals, a friend from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at the University of Oxford,[13][14] with Powell becoming a National Geographic Explorer.[15]

Powell is one of the faces of WWF's #WWFVoices campaign on global biodiversity,[16] for which he has hosted series on polar science and Arctic conservation in Svalbard and Arctic Russia,[17] island and marine conservation in the North Atlantic[18] and biodiversity in South Georgia. Powell featured in promotional videos for Earth Hour in 2019 and 2021, appearing alongside other youth advocates and Australian actress, Margot Robbie.[19][20]

In 2020, Powell became an advisor for The Queen's Commonwealth Trust,[21] a charity that funds, champions and assists the projects of youth advocates throughout the Commonwealth.[22]

Awards and honours[edit]

Powell received a UK Churchill Fellowship in 2017,[23][24] receiving the honorific CF in 2019.

In 2019, Powell was awarded the Scientific Exploration Society's Explorer Award for Inspiration & Scientific Trail-blazing.[25] In 2021, Powell was named one of the Explorers Club 50: Fifty people changing the world.[26]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Joshua Powell". National Geographic Society.
  2. ^ Wright, Rosalie (30 January 2020). "Conservation Career Stories: Joshua Powell". Conservation Ecology Group.
  3. ^ "Joshua Powell CF". Queen's Commonwealth Trust.
  4. ^ "Joshua Powell 2006 – 2011 Horsley". Old Cranbrookians' Association.
  5. ^ Wright, Rosalie (30 January 2020). "Conservation Career Stories: Joshua Powell". Conservation Ecology Group.
  6. ^ Baillie, Katherine (13 May 2016). "Penn Graduate Student Selected as a St. Gallen 'Leader of Tomorrow'". Penn Today.
  7. ^ Krueger, Alyson (24 October 2019). "Protecting Nature's Protectors". The Pennsylvania Gazette.
  8. ^ "Joshua Powell". Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.
  9. ^ Morris, Ben (October 2017). "Scientific Adventurer". All About Horsham. October 2017: 45–47.
  10. ^ "Meet the meat-eating ducks of South Georgia". METRO News. 17 March 2020.
  11. ^ "What's on: Island conservation: protecting global biodiversity". ZSL Institute of Zoology.
  12. ^ "Making the film 'Saving Britain's Islands'". ZSL Institute of Zoology. 8 February 2021.
  13. ^ "Rangers Without Borders: protecting nature in divided lands". Geographical. 31 January 2020.
  14. ^ "RANGERS WITHOUT BORDERS working for wildlife in the Caucasus, a geopolitical and biodiversity hotspot". The Explorers Journal. 97 (3): 38–47.
  15. ^ "Joshua Powell - National Geographic Society". National Geographic.
  16. ^ "Joshua Powell: Protecting endangered species". Queen's Commonwealth Trust. 17 May 2019.
  17. ^ Wright, Rosalie (30 January 2020). "Conservation Career Stories: Joshua Powell". Conservation Ecology Group.
  18. ^ "The Wild North Atlantic". wwf.exposure. 27 August 2019.
  19. ^ "Connect to Earth". YouTube. 18 March 2019.
  20. ^ "Earth Hour". Instagram (@earthhourofficial). Archived from the original on 2021-12-26.
  21. ^ "Joshua Powell CF". Queen's Commonwealth Trust.
  22. ^ "Queen's Commonwealth Trust - About". Queen's Commonwealth Trust.
  23. ^ "Joshua Powell". Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.
  24. ^ Morris, Ben (October 2017). "Scientific Adventurer". All About Horsham. October 2017: 45–47.
  25. ^ "SES EXPLORER AWARD WINNERS 2019". SES-Explore.
  26. ^ "The Explorers Club 50: Fifty people changing the world who the world needs to know about" (PDF). The Explorers Journal.