I am a Senior Lecturer in Earth Sciences at The Open University (UK).
My research uses a combination of specimen-based observations and computation to investigate the (palaeo)ecology, evolution and morphology of plants.
I work with both living plants and material from the plant fossil record, which represents a vast archive of morphological novelties and natural design solutions that have been produced over the course of evolutionary time. In this context, I am particularly interested in the evolution of tropical rainforests, which are among the most complex ecosytems on Earth. I have worked mostly with pollen grains, which are morphologically fascinating objects with an outstanding fossil record, but also work with the leaves of vascular plants.
I received a PhD from University College Dublin, spent a couple of years as a post-doc in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), and returned to the UK as a Marie Curie research fellow at the University of Exeter.
Email: Luke.Mander [at] Gmail [dot] com