DrMatthew Clark

I am now based in the Thriving Oceans Hub at the University of Sydney and am affiliated with Imperial in purely an honorary capacity.

I study the mechanisms of change in social-ecological systems. These systems are characterized by thresholds, feedbacks between social and ecological processes, and other hallmarks of complexity, making the identification of causes and effects challenging. A key focus of my work is to hypothesize about causal processes using computer simulations and interrogate these hypotheses using real-world observations, often from the satellite record. The goal of this research is to better understand the dynamics that shaped the current state of natural resources and the well-being of the communities that depend on them, as well as to predict the likely outcomes of future natural resource management decisions.

I completed my PhD in the Human-Environment Systems research group at Boise State University, working in close collaboration and spending a significant amount of time at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, department of Human behavior, Ecology and Culture. My research with these collaborators focuses on leveraging theory from cultural evolution to understand the processes that lead some groups to sustainably manage common-pool resources and others to outstrip the environment. The empirical backdrop for this research is the small-scale fishing and agricultural communities of Pemba Island, Tanzania where our research group operates a long-term field site. See a press release on some of this work here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/252954/believing-environmental-damage-done-others-cause/