School of Biosciences

Tephritid fly (Urophora cardui) on thistle.

I studied for my first degree in Zoology at King’s College, London between 1979 and 1982, and my PhD at Imperial College, London studying insect host-parasitoid interactions. On leaving Silwood Park in 1985 I joined what was then the National Vegetable Research Station (Wellesbourne) (now part of the School of Life Sciences, Warwick University) as a New Initiative Research Fellow to work on the effects of interspecific competition during host plant selection by pest insects.

I returned to Silwood Park in 1988, first joining the Silwood Centre for Pest Management and then the Biology Department as a post-doctoral researcher working on the role of spatial heterogeneity in the dynamics of insect host-parasitoid interactions on thistles. In 1994 I was appointed Research Fellow and Project Leader for the Ecotron controlled environment facility at the NERC Centre for Population Biology (CPB) at Silwood Park. I joined Cardiff University in 2000.

Cardiff University Professional Activities:

Ecology Degree Scheme Coordinator

Module Leader: Ecology (Year 1); Ecosystems Processes (Year 2); Global Change Biology (Year 3); Key Skills in Research Practice (MRes)

Deputy Director Cardiff University MRes Biosciences

School of Biosciences Welsh Language Liaison Officer 

Member of: Equality and Diversity Sub-Committee; Biological Sciences and MRes Schemes’ Boards; Learning and Teaching Committee; Cardiff University Welsh Language Medium Teaching Sub-Committee 

External Professional Activities

Editor: Global Change Biology (2004 – present)

Editor: Agricultural and Forest Entomology (2005 – present)

Editorial Board: Functional Ecology ( 1997 – present ) and Bulletin of Entomological Research (2006 – present)

Series Editor: Ecological Reviews (2008 – present)

Dean and Staff Director Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol (2011 – present)

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) UK Representative on European Science Foundation Life and Earth Science Standing Committee (2004 – 2010)

Member of NERC Peer Review College (2005 – 2009)