Dr Marion England

Marion studied for a BSc Hons in Human Sciences at University College London (UCL), followed by an MSc in Conservation Science at Imperial College. Her Master’s thesis explored the relationship between carotenoid pigmentation in tail feathers and disease susceptibility in the greenfinch, Carduelis chloris. She completed her PhD at the Animal and Plant Health Agency where she investigated the risk of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, a tick-borne virus, entering Great Britain using a combination of spatial and mathematical modelling.

Subsequently, Marion joined the Entomology group at The Pirbright Institute as a post-doctoral research scientist. She now runs the UK Culicoides (midges) Reference Laboratory which carries out surveillance of Culicoides across the UK. She provides training on taxonomy and morphological identification of Culicoides to external collaborators and students. Marion’s research interests are the ecology and seasonality of Culicoides as vectors of bluetongue virus. Previous work has focused on populations of Culicoides on farms and Marion is now investigating the Culicoides fauna in other habitats such as zoos and off-shore islands.