I gained my PhD from Imperial College, London, and came to St. Hugh’s as a Rhodes Visiting Fellowship. I was then elected to a Senior Research Fellow, and am now an Emeritus Fellow of the College. Throughout my time at Oxford, my work has focused on a group of insect parasitoids known as Strepsiptera and the peculiar relationship between these endoparasites and their hosts. I have travelled extensively to collect them and has described several new species.
I co-authored a book on Greek Insects (Duckworth) with my husband Malcolm Davies, which discusses insects not only as described in ancient literature, but also as depicted in ancient Greek art, on vases, finger rings, coins and jewellery.
In 2018 I co-authored a book titled Maria Sibylla Merian Artist, Scientist, Adventurer (Getty) (which won the 2018 Moonbeam Books Gold Award) on the seventeenth-century naturalist, artist, the first female entomologist who went a field trip to Suriname, resulting in a book in 1705 titled, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. King George III acquired one of the first editions of this book (which was hand-painted on vallum) for the Royal Collection. The Bodleian Library, Oxford, has engravings from the books of Maria Sybilla Merina: New Book of Flowers, Caterpillar Book and Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. Maria Sibylla Merian Artist, Scientist, Adventurer was translated to Japanese in 2022.
In August 2025 I authored a book Insect from Outer Space: Biology of Strepsiptera (Wiley) which gives an account of the insect Strepsiptera that parasitises 7 orders of insects. I collaborate with colleagues on the unusual morphological, genetic and behavioural changes to hosts when parasitised by Strepsiptera.
I am Specialist Chief Editor for Frontiers of Insect Science, and Editor in charge of Strepsiptera for the journal Zootaxa.
For more information regarding my research and publications, please see web page of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, and Loop.
