Awards 2020 Winner’s Spotlight: Promising Professional

Rebekah Beaumont

JBA Consulting

This award was sponsored by

Rebekah has been with JBA Consulting since February 2018 as Assistant Ecologist. During this time, she has worked on a variety of complex projects, collaborating with geomorphology, fisheries, engineers and hydrology teams on habitat monitoring, master planning, mitigation design and habitat restoration.

Within the last year Rebekah has been the Lead Ecologist on three river restoration projects, providing detailed ecological reports with recommendations for restoration options to deliver improved biodiversity and river function. Exemplar projects that Rebekah has been involved in include a river restoration scheme aiming to restore the Rivers Gavenny and Clydach back to good ecological status, reduce flood risk and enhance ecosystem resilience. Rebekah undertook a baseline ecological assessment alongside geomorphology staff, helping to provide a comprehensive survey of the entire river corridor. Rebekah provided ecological interpretation of physical pressures and impacts on these river catchments. This included surrounding land use, invasive species, pollution sources and channel modifications. Based on this information, recommendations were made to remove weirs to improve fish passage, to remove and/or replace physical modifications to the channel and to improve floodplain vegetation structure and diversity, thus reducing sediment and nutrient input.

Rebekah has also been heavily involved in a multi-disciplinary project to create a masterplan for improving East Chevington Nature Reserve for wildlife and people. Rebekah provided training to Northumberland Wildlife Trust volunteers on reptile identification, distribution, survey and refugia monitoring. Rebekah further demonstrated how to install and use camera traps, identifying how they can be used to monitor species in various habitats. She undertook invertebrate, bat and great crested newt (GCN) surveys to identify and assess habitat suitability across the reserve. Rebekah provided information for species identification guides for butterflies, day-flying moths and wildflowers to encourage more biological recording across the reserve.

Rebekah has shown a strong commitment to develop her skills and knowledge, supporting her career with targeted training. To gain her GCN survey licence, Rebekah attended a three-day course to supplement her existing field experience. A month later, Rebekah gained her GCN survey licence (less than six months after joining JBA) and led on surveys that season.

Rebekah has an outstanding commitment to volunteering and has been bird ringing regularly over the past three years (900+ hours, 3000+ birds). From this she has gained her BTO ‘C’ ringing permit and a Schedule 1 licence for Barn Owl.

Rebekah is JBA’s Building Information Modelling (BIM) champion for the Doncaster office. Her role is pivotal in ensuring high quality data management across the team. She has shared her in-depth understanding of BIM with JBA Doncaster through workshops, one-to-one support, and by disseminating training materials. During team meetings Rebekah shares feedback from audits and internal BIM meetings and encourages individuals to raise any issues they have been facing.

Rebekah’s attitude to her work is commendable, showing an enthusiasm for her work, ecology, and the people with which she works. She is a deserving winner of the Promising Professional Award.

Over the last few weeks, we have been posting further information on each of the 2020 CIEEM Awards Winners over on our blog. A full recording of the event is now available to watch online. Further details on each project/individual is set out in our 2020 CIEEM Awards Booklet.