Culham Research Group
Just another blogs.reading.ac.uk site
Skip to content
  • Home
  • About
  • Advent Botany
    • Advent Botany 2014
    • Advent Botany 2015
    • Advent Botany 2016
    • Advent Botany 2017
    • Advent Botany 2019
    • Taxonomic index to #AdventBotany
  • PhD Students
    • Ahmed Gawhari – PhD 2016
    • Ana Simoes
    • Anas Tawfeeq
    • Azi Jamaludin
    • Donald Zulu
    • Jordan Bilsborrow
    • Maria Christodoulou – PhD 2016
    • Tomos Jones
    • Widad Aljuhani – PhD 2015
    • Kálmán Könyves – PhD 2014
    • Marshall Heap – PhD 2014
    • Ahmed El-Banhawy
    • Hassan Rankou
    • Oli Ellingham
    • Aramide Dolapo Oshingboye – L’Oreal Visiting Fellowship 2014/2015
  • Projects
← Powdery Mildew Identification: Improving accuracy using previously untapped DNA regions
Palm trees in British Gardens →

Conferences Contributions 2013-Present

Posted on March 30, 2017 by Oliver Ellingham

Updated 1/3/2019

During my time as a PhD student at the University of Reading I have been lucky enough to attend a number of conferences, summer schools, and annual meetings and take part in various other outreach events. With a little more luck I will graduate this Summer, July 2017, and this blog post is therefore a summary of these conferences before my time as a PhD student comes to its end.

  • Initial meetings with powdery mildew expert Roger Cook were a hands-on introduction to the life of this common garden disease.
  • The Powdery mildew summer school, Eger, Hungary took place in August 2014 and was a great introductory meeting to attend; mixing reviews of established papers within the field and practical techniques for molecular and morphological techniques for fungal species identification. I presented a review of a Desprez-Loustau paper.

    Field trials of fungicides on the grapevine.

    Me giving a presentation on Oak – powdery mildew coevolution.

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • The 4th International Powdery Mildew Workshop offered me my first real insight into the breadth of research on powdery mildews. This highlighted a particular focus on sequencing of as much DNA as possible and aims to determine the function of each section within it. I presented a summary of my intended research and the aims of the Powdery Mildew Citizen Science Scheme.
  • In 2015 I was convinced into presenting my research in a slightly different way: via the Science Slam! This addressed a public audience at South Street Arts Centre and was an extremely rewarding endeavour.

I won the Science Slam!

  • In the summer of 2015 I attended the second Powdery mildew summer school, once again in Eger, Hungary. This was bigger and better than that of 2014 and with an extra year of experience I was able to contribute my knowledge and experience to proceedings; presenting the paper of leading powdery mildew phylogeneticist Susumu Takamatsu.
  • 2016 began with a placement in the Peterborough office of my industrial sponsor the Royal Horticultural Society. I worked as part of their publishing and online teams. Helping to produce their regular publications for RHS members as well as one off Monographs and Handbooks.

I proof read and indexed this and the Kniphofia Monograph.

A blog edited by the magazines Sub Editor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • This was followed by a two-day meeting at the Royal Society. ‘Tackling emerging fungal threats to animal health, food security and ecosystem resilience‘ was an eye-opening, high-impact meeting taking into account the most significant examples of fungi infecting human behaviours. Examples included human, animal, and crop diseases.
  • In the summer of 2016 I attended my first overseas conference: the 2016 International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions XVII Congress at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon. The whole experience, from travelling to and within the USA to interacting with the international diversity of scientists present is one I am unlikely to forget. I presented a summary to date of my research into improving identification techniques coupled with the citizen science survey at the main congress and the satellite Powdery Mildew Symposium.

Oregon’s agriculture is legendary.

Presenting at the satellite Powdery Mildew Symposium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • The Dynamic Fungus meeting was hosted by the British Mycological Society and the Microbiology Society and took pace in the Autumn of 2016 at the University of Exeter. The meeting allowed me to take in Exeter and it’s University campus and particularly highlighted the importance of fungal diseases Candida, ‘the plant destroyer’ (Phytophtora infestans), and powdery mildew.
  •  Next came the BSPP Presidential Meeting 2016 at St. Hugh’s College, University of Oxford. I presented my work as part of the PH Gregory award for early career researchers and to school children as part of the Damaging and Deadly outreach.
    • The conference was coupled with the Grand Challenges in Plant Pathology Interdisciplinary Study Group. This was a great couple of days in which we interacted with like-minded young researchers and professionals already established within the field from companies such as APHA, FERA, and Syngenta.
  • At the end of 2016 I attended the RHS John MacLeod Lecture at which Dr Ross Cameron presented ‘Urban Horticulture – Repairing the Rift?’ and I won the Marsh Christian Trust Horticultural Science Award.

The winner to the 2016 Marsh Horticultural Award, Me!

  • Finally, next week I will attend the Microbiology Society Annual Conference 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Here I will present my final PhD poster.
  • Powdery Mildew Genomics Workshop, September 2017, Eger, Hungary: presented work on new loci for improved powdery mildew identification.
  • Fungal Conservation in a Changing Europe, EMA-ISFC Meeting, October 2017, Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia: presented work on the importance of conservation of plant pathogens.
  • 5th European Congress of Conservation Biology, 12th – 15th of June 2018, Jyväskylä, Finland: presented “Rare or ignored? Working with the citizen science community to survey potentially endangered fungi in the UK“.
  • State of the World’s Fungi, 13th – 14th of September 2018, Kew: presented poster “The Lost and Found Fungi project” and aided as a local helper, contributing towards the smooth running of the conference.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Pocket
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Google

Like this:

Like Loading...

About Oliver Ellingham

PhD student at the University of Reading. Working on ID techniques of powdery mildew Fungi. Interested in mycology, plant pathology and arboriculture.
View all posts by Oliver Ellingham →
This entry was posted in PhD research, Public Engagement with Science, RHS research, Uncategorized and tagged #PowderyM, Annual Conference, Awards, Conference, Horticultural Science Award, Oli Ellingham, Oliver Ellingham, Summer School. Bookmark the permalink.
← Powdery Mildew Identification: Improving accuracy using previously untapped DNA regions
Palm trees in British Gardens →
Logging In...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • 2 Replies
  • 0 Comments
  • 0 Tweets
  • 0 Facebook
  • 2 Pingbacks
Last reply was March 30, 2017
  1. Microbiology Society – Annual Conference 2017 | Culham Research Group
    View March 30, 2017

    […] my four-year BBSRC and RHS funded studentship here at the University of Reading.  This will be my final conference as a PhD student, as I hope to graduate this Summer, July […]

    Reply
  2. Powdery Mildew Identification: Improving accuracy using previously untapped DNA regions | Culham Research Group
    View March 30, 2017

    […] aims to offer an insight into the development of powdery mildew identification techniques since the start of my PhD in 2013. […]

    Reply
  • Recent Posts

    • A personal reflection on Wild about Weeds – author Jack Wallington
    • Community fungal DNA workshop
    • #AdventBotany 2019 Day 6: Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly…
    • Final call: help identify potentially invasive plants
    • #AdventBotany 2019 Day 2: Death by chocolate
  • Recent Comments

    • Specimens, Specimens: Uses | Herbarium World on Brief notes on some Percival Wheats
    • Tendrils: 151218 – The Unconventional Gardener on Advent Botany 2015 – Day 15: Mahleb
    • Tendrils: 151218 – The Unconventional Gardener on Advent Botany 2015 – Day 17: Sgan t’sek
    • Tomos Jones on A personal reflection on Wild about Weeds – author Jack Wallington
    • Future Invaders in your Garden? – The Gardening Zoologist on Future invaders at RHS Chelsea
  • Categories

    • Advent
    • Art
    • Catalogue of Life
    • Collectors
    • e-learning
    • Hawkins Research Group
    • Herbarium RNG
    • i4Life
    • MSc Plant Diversity
    • PhD research
    • Public Engagement with Science
    • RHS research
    • Type
    • Uncategorized
    • Welcome
  • Meta

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries RSS
    • Comments RSS
    • WordPress.org
    • RSS - Posts
    • RSS - Comments
  • Subscribe to Blog via Email

    Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
Culham Research Group
Proudly powered by WordPress.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: