MrMiles Nesbit

I am an ecologist with a keen interest in agricultural ecology and pollinator disease transmission, hoping to develop mitigation strategies and improve global food security. I am driven by projects that address current global issues. I am a PhD student in the Graystock Group funded by NERC SSCP DTP through the Grantham Institute, and the Imperial College Department of Life Sciences. I am supervised by Dr. Peter Graystock and Dr. Lauren Cator at Imperial College London, and Professor William Hughes and Professor Dave Goulson at the University of Sussex.

I have worked on projects in virology, synthetic biology, arthropod genetics, and computational ecology. My PhD is exploring evidence and impact of parasite spillover across pollinator communities, which is an exciting opportunity to bring all my skills together in one project. Understanding the dynamics of parasite spread and the severity of disease across multi-species communities is a challenge of international importance. Investigating how parasites have contributed to insect pollinator range reductions and population declines has global ramifications for agroecology, ecosystem stability, and global food security given their role in pollinating crops and wildflowers. Yet to date, our understanding of these dynamics and impact remains largely unquantified, providing an exciting opportunity to bring all my skills together to help tackle this.

Before coming to Imperial College London, I completed my undergraduate at the University of Florida where I worked in the Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory and the Spacial Ecology Laboratory. I then moved to Imperial College for my Master of Research, and stayed on after as a research assistant. I then worked at the Pirbright Institute before returning to Imperial for my PhD.