Rate My Professor Jane Memmott

Professor Jane Memmott is the Professor of Ecology and Dulverton Chair in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol. She earned her B.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Leeds, with her doctoral research focusing on the community ecology of phlebotomine sandflies conducted in the rainforests of Costa Rica. Following her PhD, she held postdoctoral positions involving the construction of the first tropical food webs encompassing plants, leaf-miners, and parasitoids, as well as research on the ecology of biological control of invasive species in collaboration with teams in New Zealand, Kenya, and Australia. Memmott joined the University of Bristol as a lecturer in 1997, where she has taught ecology, served two stints as Head of Teaching, and advanced to her current professorial position. She was Head of the School of Biological Sciences from 2013 to 2017, overseeing the transition to the new Life Sciences Building.

A leading community ecologist, Memmott's research centers on pollination ecology, invasion ecology, agro-ecology, biological control, urban ecology, and restoration ecology. She utilizes ecological networks to assess the impacts of environmental change on species interactions and to evaluate restoration effectiveness, with field sites spanning from the mountains of Nepal to Bristol allotments. Her influential publications include 'Global warming and the disruption of plant–pollinator interactions' (Ecology Letters, 2007), 'Tolerance of pollination networks to species extinctions' (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2004), 'Integration of alien plants into a native flower-pollinator visitation web' (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2002), 'The impact of an alien plant on a native plant-pollinator network: an experimental approach' (Ecology Letters, 2007), and 'Understanding and planning ecological restoration of plant-pollinator networks' (Ecology Letters, 2012). Memmott has garnered major honors, including the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2021 for services to insect pollinators and ecology, election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2023, the British Ecological Society Presidents Medal in 2011, Marsh Award for Ecology in 2015, and RSPB Prize for top conservation paper in 2017. She served as President of the British Ecological Society from 2020 and collaborates with farmers, conservation practitioners, and policymakers to translate research into practice.