Kyla is an independent marine ecological consultant who has worked with organisations such as Seafish, SRSL marine consultancy in Scotland, Scottish Environment LINK, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Scottish Creel Fishermans Federation (SCFF). In June 2013 Kyla successfully completed her PhD at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), with a thesis titled "Predicting the ecosystems effects of harvesting beach-cast kelp for biofuel", which formed part of the EU BioMara project. Prior to her PhD Kyla carried out research at Anchor Environmental Consultants(Cape Town), which conducts work in the fields of marine, estuarine and freshwater ecology, resource economics, natural resource management and conservation planning. Prior to this she obtained an MSc in marine Science in South Africa, where her thesis focused on assessing heavy metal contamination in estuaries. In addition, Kyla holds an honours degree in marine chemistry, and a general undergraduate degree in ichthyology (fish). Therefore, Kyla's knowledge spans from the simple elements that make up mud, to the complex structures of entire marine food webs.