Rushan is currently a PhD candidate at James Cook University (Townsville) but is studying remotely from Singapore. His focus is on the conservation of sea turtles within Southeast Asia, with a bulk of this thesis focused on identifying habitats critical for their conservation. His expertise as a spatial ecologist is currently the focus of his work with the Olive Ridley Project.
Rushan interned in the Maldives in 2013 where he worked alongside Dr. Martin Stelfox. It was here, late one night in the office, that Rushan witnessed the founding of the Olive Ridley Project. It is also where Rushan learned from Martin that conservation needed meaningful actions, advice that guided his future decisions to study sea turtles.
Rushan continued his studies in Conservation and Wildlife Biology and completed his honours on sea turtle nest site selection. Afterwards, he retired his fins for boots for a few years to expand his spatial ecology portfolio. While he enjoyed the technical parts of his work, he longed to work with sea turtles again. He also happened to wonder how Martin was doing after so many years. A few e-mails later, Rushan is now a spatial ecology researcher with the Olive Ridley Project, where he hopes to uncover the mysteries of how olive ridley turtles use the seascape of the Indian Ocean.
