Dr Mandy Haggith is a writer and academic publishing works about people and nature, with a particular interest in trees, bears and the sea. As a UHI lecturer since 2018 she teaches creative writing, lectures on eco-literature, and supervises students up to PhD level.

 She has published a non-fiction book (Paper Trails – from trees to trash, the true cost of paper), five novels, a set of novellas, an anthology of tree poems, and six collections of poetry, with the most recent one, Briny, launched at SAMS’ Ocean Explorer Centre.

Mandy as an environmentalist in her motivation and a polymath in her interest and skills, who studied piano, philosophy, maths and artificial intelligence alongside creative writing. She holds a BA from Oxford, MSc from Edinburgh, MLitt from Glasgow and PhD from Edinburgh for which she explored situations where people disagree, particularly about environmental issues. She then developed software tools for land managers and foresters before leaving academia for 20 years to write, conduct independent research, support community organisations, and campaign for the world’s forests in a number of roles.

Today, Mandy’s research uses creative writing to explore environmental and historical issues with her most current project using poetry to investigate feelings and actions on climate change in coastal communities. She was the Principal Investigator of a Carnegie-Trust funded research project, ‘The Liminal Zone’, which explored the seashore as a metaphor for the interface between art practice and teaching, and led to a knowledge-exchange project, ‘Art-sea’ linking marine science and arts. She is a founding member of a group of UHI researchers interested in the synergies between art, research and teaching, is the arts lead on the Community Land Academic Network and a member of UHI’s Animal Welfare and Environment Committee.

Mandy’s commitment to the ocean runs deep, nurtured by her extensive sailing experiences.