Kabiru Abubakari
I am a Ph.D student in Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), affiliated with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. My research, supervised by Professor Silvia Liverani, Professor Andrew Leitch, and Dr Ilia J. Leitch, focuses on Bayesian spatial modelling for biodiversity.
My academic journey began with a degree in Economics at the University for Development Studies (UDS) in Tamale, Ghana, where I graduated in 2020. Afterward, I served as a teaching and administrative assistant for one year in the Department of Economics. Working closely with Professor Haruna Issahaku, Professor Paul Kwame Nkegbe, and Professor Stanley Kojo Dary was an inspiring experience that led to my first steps into academic research and writing.
I went on to pursue a Master’s degree at the University of Burgundy Europe (UBE) in Dijon, France. During this time, I also completed a two-month internship at ECONRES at the Autonomous University of Madrid (AUM) in Madrid, Spain. There, I worked with Professor Coro Chasco and Professor Julie Le Gallo on structural equation modelling an experience that further deepened my interest in research at the intersection of economics and statistics.
My Ph.D work brings together statistical modelling, and ecology to develop methods that better capture uncertainty in biodiversity data. I am especially interested in Bayesian approaches, spatial statistics, and their applications in understanding economic, ecological and health data.