2026 President Medallist

David Labonte

Imperial College London

David is a Reader in the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London. In his research, David combines his two main passions: his love for animals, and his admiration for physics. Together with his group, he investigates the influence of mechanical constraints on the performance, behaviour and evolution of arthropods (and sometimes larger animals or even plants!). Every day, David is deeply grateful that he has a job in which he can follow his interest, and that he gets to work with and learn from the passionate members of his research group.

Dr. Poonam Mehra

University of Nottingham

Dr. Poonam Mehra is a Principal Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham, where she investigates how plant roots sense and adapt to uneven soil moisture at single-cell resolution.

Originally from Uttarakhand in northern India, Poonam completed her PhD at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi, where she studied how rice roots respond to nutrient stress. She later received India’s prestigious INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship at the University of Delhi to explore how plant hormones shape root and seed traits.

In 2020, she joined the University of Nottingham as an EMBO Long-Term Fellow and later as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow (2022-2024) in the group of Prof. Malcolm Bennett. During this period, she uncovered key cell-scale mechanisms behind local root adaptations such as xerobranching; a response in which roots temporarily suppress lateral root formation when they encounter air gaps in soil. She now uses these adaptations as model systems to reveal how roots sense water at the cellular level.

In 2024, Poonam was awarded a BBSRC Discovery Fellowship and an ERC Starting Grant to investigate how non-genomic mechanisms drive root water sensing and adaptations. Her team develops innovative tools and imaging approaches to understand how roots perceive, respond, and reprogram themselves in in realistic, fluctuating soil water environments.

Dr Lorna McAusland

Nottingham University, United Kingdom

Dr Lorna McAusland is a plant physiologist, specialising in the dynamic responses of photosynthesis and water regulation to heat stress. During her PhD at the University of Essex under Professors Tracy Lawson and Neil Baker, Lorna investigated the role of species-specific, dynamic stomatal responses in balancing water loss with carbon gain. Since her PhD, Lorna has been part of eight field campaigns across Europe, the USA and Mexico and has contributed to three global consortia (RIPE, IWYP, HeDWIC), focusing on the improvement of wheat physiology for more resilient yields under growing climactic uncertainty. Recently, this work has also included understanding the contribution of nocturnal plant processes to survival under daytime environmental extremes. Currently hosted by Professor Erik Murchie at the University of Nottingham, Lorna holds a BBSRC-Discovery Fellowship focussing on development of high-throughput phenotyping systems to assess the resilience of non-foliar photosynthesis under heat, particularly the wheat ear.

Dr. Dave Lawson

University of Bristol

Dr Dave Lawson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol, where he spends half his time as a teaching-focused academic and half as the Faculty Academic Director for Inclusion, Belonging and Community. Dave’s research explores plant-pollinator interactions, seeking to understand why flowers are so wonderfully complex. These days, his main focus is empowering colleagues to create learning experiences that enhance students’ sense of belonging, supporting them to thrive, and where staff feel confident and equipped to embed inclusive practice. A strong advocate for student partnership, Dave can’t get enough of staff-student collaborations to decolonise curricula, strengthen inclusive, psychologically safe learning spaces, and ensure student voice drives meaningful change.