Introduction to Main Research Areas
Insect-host interactions, studied from the insects' perspective, comprise the central topic of my research. Evolution is the guiding theoretical principle that informs all of my work. I am attempting to discover how evolutionary forces have shaped the solutions that insects have found to adapt to their hosts and how these adaptations have resulted in the huge diversity of insects.
I am currently working as a co-investigator on a BBSRC grant entitled " A phylogenomic approach to dating an ancient insect lineage". This is in collaboration with Rod Page (University of Glasgow) and Mark Blaxter (University of Edinburgh).
During my previous postdoc, I worked in Rod Page's lab on the mode an tempo of evolution of seabird lice. This postdoc was funded by NERC.
My first postdoc was a scoping study to determine the potential use of insect enzymes for depilation in the leather industry, which was funded by the Natural History Museum, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Leather Corporation.
I did my PhD in Alfried Vogler's lab on the evolution and ecology of acorn weevils (genus Curculio). I was funded by a NERC CASE studentship in partnership with the Natural History Museum, London.