Rate My Professor Ben Longdon

Ben Longdon is Associate Professor in Host-Pathogen Evolutionary Ecology in the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus. He earned a BSc (Hons) in Biology from the University of Bristol in 2006 and a PhD from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Edinburgh in 2011, funded by a BBSRC Studentship. Following his doctorate, Longdon held postdoctoral positions in the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge from 2012 to 2016, including as an ERC Post-Doctoral Researcher and NERC Researcher Co-Investigator, alongside a Junior Research Fellowship at Christ’s College. In 2016, he joined the University of Exeter as a Sir Henry Dale Fellow, jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society, a position he holds until 2025. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022. Longdon has received the Sir Kenneth Mather Memorial Prize from the Genetics Society UK in 2011 and the Alfred Russell Wallace Award from the Royal Entomological Society in 2012. He serves as Director of Early Career Researchers in his department and as programme lead for the BSc and MSci Evolutionary Biology degrees.

Longdon's research focuses on the evolutionary ecology of host-pathogen interactions, particularly how viruses and other pathogens switch between host species and the factors influencing successful host shifts. His work primarily uses insects such as Drosophila species and their natural viruses, employing comparative approaches across species, and recently incorporates phage-bacteria models. Key publications include 'The evolution and genetics of virus host shifts' (PLoS Pathogens, 2014), 'The Discovery, Distribution, and Evolution of Viruses Associated with Drosophila melanogaster' (PLoS Biology, 2015), 'Taxonomy of the order Mononegavirales: update 2016' (Archives of Virology, 2016), 'The host phylogeny determines viral infectivity and replication across Staphylococcus host species' (PLoS Pathogens, 2023), and 'Investigating the outcomes of virus coinfection within and across host species' (PLoS Pathogens, 2023). His contributions have advanced understanding of pathogen emergence and host susceptibility patterns, with highly cited works on virus taxonomy and symbiont-mediated resistance. Longdon's research informs broader questions on disease ecology and evolution.