Corey, originally from Wales, completed his undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Exeter in the UK. He was mostly based at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), where he characterised microbes impacting lobster production in a novel sea-based culture system. He later moved to Vancouver to explore more fundamental questions of host-microbe associations in invertebrates, with a particular focus of protist diversity and protist parasites. His work on mircobiomes and symbiosis explores how and why organisms intereact with each other, how such interactions have evolved, and what these interactions mean for animal, human, and environmental health more broadly.

Lena completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Bath, where her final-year research focused on the structural and kinetic characterisation of CTX-M-15, a clinically important extended-spectrum β-Lactamase. During her year in industry at the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture (CEFAS), she investigated suspected members of the emerging viral family Nudiviridae, characterising viruses associated with mortality events in marine crustaceans. As a first-year PhD researcher with the South West Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (SWBio DTP), Lena is based at the University of Bath and works in collaboration with Swansea University. Her research explores the molecular parasitology and evolutionary genomics of parasitic dinoflagellates, with a particular focus on Ichthyodinium, a protist parasite linked to fish embryo mortality in aquaculture species. Her work aims to better understand the biology, evolution, and host interactions of these parasites and how this knowledge can contribute to improved disease management in aquaculture.

Rifah completed her undergraduate studies in Biotechnology at BRAC University, Bangladesh. Followed by an MSc in Biotechnology at the University of Essex, where her research focused on identifying invertebrate bioindicators for heavy metal pollution in English rivers. She later joined a DEFRA-funded project as a Research Assistant, where she worked with spatial statistical modelling to assess freshwater fish and invertebrate abundance. Her PhD at the University of Bath will investigate whether high-throughput quantitative imaging can complement DNA metabarcoding for freshwater plankton monitoring, by using open-source imaging platforms and machine learning to assess biodiversity at the Cam & Wellow Living Lab. She is broadly interested in using data-driven and computational methods to study freshwater biodiversity and environmental pressures.

Rob, from Nottingham, completed an integrated masters at Durham University focusing on DNA mechanics. Following a brief stint in enterprise, he joined the Holt Lab for a PhD to study protist genomics. Here, his work investigates factors for host specialisation in parasite genomes, exploring the potential for predictive modelling of host range.