Aqlima holds an MSc in Environmental Technology (Policy and Economics) from Imperial College London and an MSc in Biodiversity and Conservation of Natural Resources from Universiti Putra Malaysia. Her academic work has focused on environmental policy, biodiversity conservation, and the links between climate and food security. She has experience supporting research and monitoring and evaluation projects within NGOs and academic settings, contributing to evidence-based analysis for environmental and development programmes.

I have had an interdisciplinary education, ranging from chemistry to climate modelling, and have spent time working on large datasets with the British Antarctic Survey.  I'm now bringing my data analytics background to work with Tom Ball on the Mandala project, investigating the environmental impacts of food consumed in UK cities.

I am an early-career quantitative and applied global change ecologist. My current research focuses on mapping global connectivity and advancing its applications for conservation and ecosystem restoration. But on the sidelines, I collaborate on research involving global biological invasions and biosecurity, as well as the conservation biogeography of amphibians and reptiles. I am broadly interested in topics about macroecology, biogeography, ecogeography, and global change ecology.