Fungi

Lynne Boddy is professor of fungal ecology at Cardiff University. She has authored two academic books and Humongous Fungus (DK, July 2021) for children. In 2019, she was awarded an MBE for Services to Mycology and science outreach, and in 2021, she won the Arboricultural Association Award for her achievements. Lynne has appeared on the BBC’s Deep Down and Dirty: the Science of Soil, Saving Species, Great British Food Revival, and The One Show; BBC Radio 4’s Life Scientifique, In Our Time, and The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry; and Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch.

Ali Ashby is a fungal biologist and director of a life sciences consultancy company in Cambridge. She is a former Royal Society University Research Fellow and was based in the Department of Plant Sciences, Cambridge, where she focused on fungal sexual development and fungal diseases of brassicas. Ali is a member of the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) and the British Mycological Society (BMS), and she is a former member of BMS Council and former chair of the BMS Fungal Education and Outreach committee. She coordinated the national BMS UK Fungus Day in 2013 and is actively involved in fungal education. Ali recently wrote a book called Unravelling the Fungus Among Us (LR Price Publications, 2023).