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Cambridge Biosciences DTP PhD Programme

 

Department of Plant Services

Research theme: Bioscience for sustainable agriculture and food

Biography

After an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Cambridge, graduating in 2002, I worked variously for the University and University Press in various aspects of IT and graphic design. In 2008 I founded a software company designing business systems for photographers (www.lightbluesoftware.com). Upon selling my share in the company in 2016, I returned to science on the BBSRC DTP scheme, starting my PhD in the Glover Lab in Plant Sciences in October 2017.
 

Research

Project Title:

Improving the pollination of the strawberry

Project Summary:

I am interested in pollination and plant-pollinator interactions, and is investigating these using the garden strawberry as a model system. My PhD involves characterising the floral variation between cultivars of strawberry and testing bumblebee responses to extremes of that variation to determine their preferences and inform future plant breeding strategies. 

 

Publications

Key publications: 

Pattrick, Symington, Federle and Glover
The mechanics of nectar offloading in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris and implications for optimal concentrations during nectar foraging (J. Royal Soc. Interface 2020 17:162)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2019.0632
(Featured in the New York Times, The Times, The Independent, the Daily Mail, ITV News, Sky News, The Naked Scientists on BBC Radio & Radio National (Australia), and more.)

Symington and Glover
SpotCard: an optical mark recognition tool to improve field data collection speed and accuracy (Plant Methods 2019 15:19)
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13007-019-0403-2

Teaching and Supervisions

Research supervision: 

Professor Beverley Glover

Staff Photo

Contact Details

Job Titles

PhD Student