Keynote Speakers

Professor Juliet Osborne is a the Director of the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI) at the University of Exeter and she leads a research team studying bee movement, ecology and pollination in agro-ecosystems. The team uses a combination of novel technology, experiments and models to predict the effects of changing threats on bee survival, and subsequent impacts on pollination. In particular Juliet is best known for her work tracking individual flying bees and butterflies with harmonic radar, and most recently tracking asian hornets to their nests with radio telemetry. Juliet's research team has also developed and validated individual based systems models of bee colonies and populations: the BEEHAVE models which can be used to predict the impact of multiple stressors on bee colonies, in realistic landscapes, over large spatial scales and long time frames.

Sara Leonhardt is a professor at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. She is interested in the chemistry underlying plant-insect interactions – with particular focus on the proximate and ultimate mechanisms underlying the exploitation and use of chemically and functionally diverse plant resources by bees. Projects in her group aim at unravelling the link between resource quality & diversity and the sensory ecology, behavior, organization & fitness of both social and solitary bees.

Dr Maj Rundlöf is an ecologist and environmental scientist at Lund University in Sweden, interested in understanding the multitude of factors influencing biodiversity and the functions organisms provide in ecosystems and to humans. She is particularly interested in how land use change and management of agricultural landscapes affect pollinators and the pollination services they provide to both crops and wild plants. In the past few years, she has also been developing the field of landscape ecotoxicology, to understand how bees are exposed to and effected by pesticide use in the landscape.

I am the head of the Evolutionary Genetics Institute at the (HHU) University of Duesseldorf (Germany). The goal of our research is to understand how genes can specify the fascinating developmental and behavioral features of honey bees (Apis mellifera). The exact topic will be announced.

Quinn McFrederick is an professor and entomologist at the University of California, Riverside. The McFrederick lab's goal is to improve wild bee conservation and managed bee health via the study of symbiosis. We study microbial parasites, commensals, and mutualists with the goal of leveraging our knowledge of how bee-associated microbes interact with environmental stressors and parasites to sustain bee populations for the future.

Jane Stout is a Professor in Botany in the School of Natural Sciences and Vice President for Biodiversity and Climate Action, at Trinity College Dublin. She is an ecologist who seeks to understand the processes and consequences of human activity on natural and managed ecosystems. Her research focuses on pollination ecology, exploring how interactions shape ecological processes at a range of scales and the value of these interactions for human society and well-being. Her work addresses global challenges associated with climate change, food security, biodiversity conservation and human health, which are national and international research priorities, and crucial for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. She is co-founder of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan and co-founder and former Director of Natural Capital Ireland.