About me
I completed my undergraduate degree in Veterinary Science at the Royal Veterinary College in 2010. After graduating I moved to begin my PhD at Liverpool University within both the Protein Function and Mammalian Behaviour and Evolution groups. This collaboration allows me to complement behavioural studies with complex protein analysis.
My PhD project is concerned with how sperm competition, when sperm from more than one male compete to fertilise an ovum, affects mammalian fertility traits. I am using 2 strategies of investigation; behavioural studies of house mice, to look for evidence of short term phenotypic variation, along with comparative analysis techniques on a wide range of mammalian species. I am particularly interested in variation in seminal vesicle and sperm proteins, how these have evolved due to different mating systems and, on a shorter time scale, whether there is phenotypic plasticity in response to different environmental cues. Together, this work may highlight proteins under selection by sperm competition, which could potentially act as markers of fertility.
I completed my undergraduate degree in Veterinary Science at the Royal Veterinary College in 2010. After graduating I moved to begin my PhD at Liverpool University within both the Protein Function and Mammalian Behaviour and Evolution groups. This collaboration allows me to complement behavioural studies with complex protein analysis.
My PhD project is concerned with how sperm competition, when sperm from more than one male compete to fertilise an ovum, affects mammalian fertility traits. I am using 2 strategies of investigation; behavioural studies of house mice, to look for evidence of short term phenotypic variation, along with comparative analysis techniques on a wide range of mammalian species. I am particularly interested in variation in seminal vesicle and sperm proteins, how these have evolved due to different mating systems and, on a shorter time scale, whether there is phenotypic plasticity in response to different environmental cues. Together, this work may highlight proteins under selection by sperm competition, which could potentially act as markers of fertility.