Profile

I live in sunny East Lothian with my husband, two daughters and three greedy guinea pigs. I love my garden – for growing things, watching wildlife and just sitting in. I also write and practice pilates. I am passionate about preventing climate change and addressing inequality, locally, nationally and internationally. I love a G&T and a good Thai curry.

I’ve done a range of activities in my life as a plant scientist. I started out doing a PhD in plant systematics–working out the relationships of a group of species from central Africa.

I then spent a year running a biodiversity surveying programme in Cambodia, and few years based in Edinburgh project managing Darwin Initiative capacity-building and forest inventory projects in the Republic of Congo.

After that I moved into palynology–the study of pollen. I used pollen from the present to study the relationships between plants and how their reproductive structures might have evolved in response to evolutionary events. I also used fossilized pollen from sediment cores dating back tens of thousands of years to reconstruct past vegetation communities and climates in the Mountains of Southwest China biodiversity hotspot.

I have also worked part-time as a freelance writer and science communicator.

Since having a family and settling down (!) I have moved into more of a desk-based strategic role, aiming to target RBGE’s science activities at national and global priorities, and communicate the impacts of our science to audiences ranging from the general public to politicians. I am also responsible for our research ethics policy. It’s a varied and fascinating role!

Once I have got my children out of the house I usually make a coffee and sit down at my computer to see what urgent enquiries have come up from our science teams overnight. Then I might be writing publicity documents, sorting images for publication, keeping tabs on new scientific advances or policies. I might also review an ethics application for a new project, share some tweets about our work, or have meetings with other scientists to find out what exciting advances they have made recently!

Before covid I would have at least one day a week at the offices of RBGE, meeting people in person and catching up with new ideas.