PhD Researchers
PhD Researcher at Queen Mary University of London
Plants may be among our richest sources of useful chemistry, yet most of it is still uncharted — we have recorded compounds from only a small fraction of species, and rarely at random. My PhD asks how large that gap really is, how biased our current picture of plant chemistry is, and whether a species' ecology can tell us where to look next.
To study this, I build open data pipelines that harmonise the major natural-product databases into a single, structure-keyed catalogue of plant chemistry, linked to Kew's taxonomy, global distributions and the plant tree of life. With it I measure how non-randomly plants have been sampled — by human use, taxonomy, evolutionary history, geography and conservation status — which suggests that widely cited totals for plant chemical diversity are better read as bias-conditioned lower bounds than as complete counts. I then use species-richness estimators to put a range on how much may still be missing.
A second strand tests a simple idea: that choosing which species to screen by their ecological diversity — their traits, environments and evolutionary distance — may accumulate new compounds faster than screening at random. I am now extending this into a multimodal model that brings together herbarium images, phylogeny and trait–environment data to predict the medicinal potential of the many plant species never chemically assessed.
What motivates me is connecting two worlds that rarely meet — global biodiversity patterns and the fine-grained logic of drug discovery. By learning from how plants have solved chemical problems over millions of years, I hope to make early-stage discovery more predictive, more interpretable, and better aligned with the biology and ecology that underpin it.
PhD Researcher at Queen Mary University of London
Our individual lifestyles, and the society that supports them, are entirely founded upon and embedded within nature – our food, our water, our materials, our wellbeing, and our stable environment. Yet a worldview which sees society and economy as distinct from and above nature, using it for short term gains, is undermining these vital foundations; Nature’s Contributions to People (NCPs). In this role, I am modelling and exploring that weave between people and planet by creating “socio-ecological networks”; where species and people are modelled together in a single system. This will allow us to explore how biodiversity loss is cascading through our ecosystem to impact people by collapsing NCPs. I will also explore how this kind of network-based thinking can be used to conceptualise, communicate and actualise an alternative “Fabric of Life” worldview ([Diaz 2022](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8336)); where we see ourselves as a crucial thread in an inseparably interwoven people-planet fabric. Thus, allowing our decision making – from consumer to policymaker – to go from undermining our natural foundations to supporting them. I am coming from a biology undergraduate and Master’s research at the University of Oxford, where I joined WildCRU to develop new software to help conservation practitioners plan for connectivity of habitats and movement of species as climate change progresses. I am also trained and have authored in family and public engagement with biodiversity science, and have consulted on social and ecological future risks, for EU NGOs, international charities, and the UK government.
Visiting PhD Researcher from Minzu University of China
Flower-eating represents a unique way in which people interact with plants as well as their ecological environment. As edible plant organs, flowers are not only diverse food resources with nutritional value, but also carry memories, cultural meanings, and social significance. In Yunnan, Southwest China, the consumption of flowers is remarkably widespread, giving rise to a distinctive culinary tradition.
With a background in Ecology and as a PhD candidate in Ethnology at Minzu University of China, I always focus on documenting and understanding traditional botanical knowledge and its role in sustaining local food systems and agricultural heritage. My previous ethnobotanical research has explored the diversity of edible flowers in Yunnan, local knowledge associated with their use, and their contributions to biocultural diversity. I have also combined nutritional analyses and electronic tongue assessments to investigate the relationship between the biological properties of edible flowers and the cultural preferences that shape their consumption.
My current doctoral research examines edible flower traditions in Gaoligong Mountains in western Yunnan. Drawing on perspectives from multispecies ethnography and the social life of things, I conduct long-term fieldwork, combining ethnobotanical surveys, multi-sited interviews, and ethnographic observation. By tracing the movement of flowers from forests and farmlands to households, markets, restaurants, and tourism spaces, I explore how edible flower practices contribute to ethnic and regional identities, community cohesion, and collective memory. I am also interested in the transformations of food traditions under commercialization and modernization, particularly the ways in which edible flower cultures simultaneously flourish and decline, as traditional knowledge is preserved, simplified, and increasingly homogenized.
Alumni
Undergraduate at Queen Mary University of London
I’m a biology student at Queen Mary, focusing on understanding the natural world and the organisms within it. I’m particularly interested in climate change and how different species respond to environmental shifts. In my project, I study general patterns of rarity in species that are used by people, looking broadly at how common or uncommon these species tend to be.
Plants for Health: Content and Data Officer at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
After completing my integrated master’s degree in biology from the University of York, I carried out an internship with Samuel Pironon, working on documenting the diversity of plant species used by humans across the world. I am currently a member of the Plants for Health team at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This project aims to create a comprehensive catalogue of plants used in health-related contexts, including dietary supplements, beverages, cosmetics, and traditional medicines. It addresses inconsistencies in how plant and herbal substance names are applied across countries and disciplines. In my role as Content and Data Officer, I focus on analysing, reformatting and enriching datasets for both partner and project datasets. Additionally, I manage a small team of volunteers who are working on various projects related to the data capture of plant use information.
Postdoctoral Research Associate (Kew Science) at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
My research centres on understanding ecosystem change across spatial, temporal and environmental gradients, and developing ways to improve conservation efforts while balancing sustainable livelihoods and improving human wellbeing.