Description

I am a second year student at the University of the West of England, studying Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Science. I am a passionate and diligent student who has been keen to educate the public on the importance of wildlife conservation, ever since I attended a lecture last year on the subject. I had a brief insight into the educational side of wildlife conservation whilst volunteering on a bird and small mammals’ survey in Switzerland. Here I accompanied school children to recover mice from the traps we had laid. I have had much experience working in the field undertaking turtle conservation in Mexico, working in the reptile house and aquarium of Basel Zoo, Switzerland, maintaining the tanks and animal husbandry. I am a creative and artistic person.  In my spare time I often make DIY projects, paint watercolour studies of landscapes and film and edit my music for social media. I have owned Giant African Land Snails and a Corn Snake since the age of eight, and I enjoy maintaining my aquarium.

Work Experience:

2017  –  Novartis Pharmaceuticals AG, Basel, Switzerland, Intellectual Property

Summer Intern in the patent department, working in a team to check and update records in electronic document management system; managing zipped files; reporting to senior patent attorneys; communication via email with patent agent firms worldwide.

2016  –  Novartis Pharmaceuticals AG, Basel, Switzerland, Intellectual Property

Summer Intern in the trademark department, cataloguing trademarks alphabetically by trademark and country; checking and updating trademark status in record management system.

2015  –  Swiss Bird Migration Survey for Vogelwarte Sempach (Jura, Switzerland)

Catching and tagging migrating birds as they pass through a valley of the Swiss Jura hills.  Additional work included identification of the birds and their removal from the nets.  Once the necessary data was obtained, I was responsible for their release.  Educational work was also carried whilst on a rodent survey, involving local school children, where mice were caught and then their data recorded, using longworth traps.

2014  –  Turtle Conservation, Chupadero Beach, Colima State, Mexico, for Projects Abroad

Collected and counted Olive Ridley turtle eggs and then moved them to a protected hatchery so that the eggs would have a higher rate of survival and protection from poachers and animals.  The hatchlings were collected and released in the sea to increase survival rate.  Work also included reforestation work of the mangroves, and completing a local lagoon bird census survey.

2014  –  Aquarium and Reptile House, Basel Zoo, Basel, Switzerland

I learned to clean the tanks and vivarium, as well as prepare the food and feed the in habitants.  Additionally, I helped with the shark breeding conservation program, feeding the young sharks and cleaning their tanks.

2014  –  Community Service Project, South Africa

I help fundraise money for Reuben Monareng School Primary School, in Tlhabane, South Africa. This money was used to help the school build functioning toilet facilities and a library. I kept became a pen pal to a young school girl studying at the primary school, whom I later met when I visited the school. Additionally, I helped out at the Linawo’s Children’s Home, Western Cape, South Africa. Here I helped around the home doing garden and maintenance work, fixing the children’s bikes and painting the home. The community and service work I did in South Africa aimed to help provide student with opportunities and facilities to aid and support their education, which in turn will help fight the prejudice against children.

Interests:

Herpetology & keeping reptiles
Music (singing, guitar and violin)
Wildlife photography
Filming, recording, editing, videos – see, for instance, YouTube – www.youtube.com/c/MadeleineClaire
Travelling (Costa Rica, Mexico,  Madagascar, Dominica, Guadalupe, Cape Verde, South Africa, Europe)
Watercolour painting
Figure skating
Basketball: Women’s 1st team, UWE
Softball: Varsity team, ISB