Professor Dan Bebber

About me:

Dan Bebber obtained his PhD in Tropical Ecology at the University of Oxford, studying the effect of El Nino-related drought and insect herbivores on tree regeneration in Sabah, Malaysia. He then moved to the Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto to take up a post-doctoral position in forest regeneration in Ontario, followed by a research into the role of fungi in forest nutrient dynamics at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford. In 2007 he joined the environmental NGO Earthwatch, based in Oxford, as Head of Climate Change Research, managing an international citizen science research programme into forest carbon dynamics. He joined Exeter in 2013, studying the global distributions of crop pests and pathogens and the impacts of climate change on crop production. He is particularly interested in abiotic and biotic threats to tropical crops like coffee and banana, and works closely with the organization CABI on pest and pathogen impacts. He is currently Chair of the British Mycological Society's Fungal Biology Research Committee, and co-Technical Director of CABI's Global Burden of Crop Loss initiative.

Interests:
Broad research specialisms:

• plant pathogen epidemiology
• fungal ecology
• food security
• species distributions

Qualifications:

MA, DPhil (Oxford)

Career:

2000-2001: Researcher, Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto

2002-2006: Researcher, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford

2007-2012: Head of Climate Change Research, Earthwatch, Oxford

2013-2015: Senior Research Fellow, Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter

2016-2019: Senior Lecturer in Microbial Ecology, Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter

2020-2024: Associate Professor in Ecology, Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter

2024-Present: Professor of Ecology, Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter