Horticultural Crop Research (East Malling)

Camila has a BSc in Biology and a MSc in Plant Breeding. Her research interest include molecular genetics and genome editing for precision crop breeding and she is currently carrying out a full-time BBSRC PhD studentship in Crop Sciences at the University of Reading, based at NIAB East Malling.

Research project

Camila's PhD project is focused on understanding the genetic control of the everbearing trait in the cultivated strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) by using gene editing, and to further develop reliable markers for the selection of optimised everbearing habit.

Scott’s role is to raise the profile of the research and commercial activities at East Malling and to improve collaboration between the researchers and the fruit and wider horticulture industry. This includes the activities of the Growing Kent & Medway programme.

Lauren is responsible for leading all the communication activity for Growing Kent & Medway. This involves securing press coverage, developing and delivering events, generating website content and managing the social media channels.

Growing Kent & Medway is supported by UKRI’s Strength in Places Fund and is establishing the Kent & Medway region as a world-leader in climate-smart, sustainable horticultural food and drink production.

I work in the Genetics, Genomics and Breeding department as a Plant Technician. The main purpose of my role is to provide support to the strawberry and raspberry breeding programmes by carrying out general plant husbandry duties, fruit assessments and technical assistance with plant patent applications. Additionally, I assist with maintaining the germplasm collection, performing seed extractions and micropropagating plants via meristem excision.

Research interests

My current research focuses on the analysis of metagenomics data to try and understand some of the complex microbial interaction in and between organisms in soil/rhizosphere/rhizoplane and plant endophytes. I am also the principal statistician for NIAB East Malling and increasingly for the wider NIAB group.

Research interests

Research interests

Dr Matevz Papp-Rupar, Molecular Plant Pathology PhD, Biotechnology MSc, is a research leader in the pest and pathogen ecology team at NIAB in East Malling, with over 10 years' experience in plant pathology. His early research at the National Institute for Biology, Slovenia included detection and characterisation of Potato virus Y and grapevine yellows phytoplasma (Ca. Phytoplasma vitis) in pathogen hosts, wild plant species and insect vectors.

In my current role as NIAB’s horticultural trials co-ordinator, I work with industry to deliver high-quality scientific trials aimed at underpinning the demands of horticulture. Our unique facilities, trial plots and world-leading scientists (across many disciplines) enable NIAB to put together the right trial to answer your questions – and that is part of the fun when working on projects which bridge academia and research.

Tina is the first point of contact for all HR enquiries at NIAB East Malling, providing a full HR administration service to all internal and external customers.