Plant Sciences

Dr Dean Rea, BSc, PhD

Dr Dean Rea obtained a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of East Anglia. This included an intercalated year conducting synthetic organic chemistry research within the Medicinal Chemistry Department at GlaxoSmithKline. This was followed by a PhD in Structural Biology within the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, focusing on structure-function relationships in peptidase enzymes, primarily involving protein crystallography, enzymology, and molecular biology. He subsequently explored plant circadian clock proteins, microbial aromatic degradation enzymes, carotenoid dioxygenases, microbial transcriptional repressors, bacterial cell wall biochemistry, and antibiotic resistance.

Since 2015, alongside scientific editing and proofreading, Dean has worked in ecological restoration of the uplands in the Peak District and other areas of the UK. This includes tree-planting for woodland creation; hedge-planting for farmland biodiversity enhancement; re-wetting and blanket bog restoration for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and flood mitigation through building stone and timber dams, spreading heather brash, and planting sphagnum moss; and ecological monitoring, specialising in botanical and bird surveying.

Dean has co-authored more than 30 scientific papers, many as first author, and now applies his broad knowledge of the life sciences to scientific editing and proofreading, alongside conducting practical conservation, ecological restoration, and biodiversity monitoring work.

Dr Radhika Desikan, PhD

Radhika has a PhD in plant science from University of the West of England, Bristol, and was an academic for several years. She taught plant science at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her research interest was in understanding how plants tolerate abiotic and biotic stresses, and to investigate this at a cellular level. Her area of specialisation was plant cell signalling, in particular, free radicals. Radhika has published numerous papers during my research career, in this field. For a few years now, she has been editing academic papers in plant science for those whose native language is not English. Radhika enjoys the challenge of making plant science more readable and understandable, not just for plant scientists but non-academics too.

Anusha Hariharan Iyer, MSc, ELS

Anusha Hariharan Iyer completed her MSc from the University of Mumbai, India, where she worked on the genetic transformation of carrots. Since 2010, she has been working as an editor for authors whose first language is not English. In 2012, she received her certification from the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS). Her areas of expertise include agricultural science, botany, ecology, plant and animal biochemistry and genetics, marine biology, microbiology, taxonomy, and zoology.

Andrew Apudo, MSc

Andrew Apudo is a full-time Life Science Editor with publishing experience. Andrew obtained his first degree, BSc in Plant Ecology and Environmental Science, from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, and afterwards, an MSc in Botany, from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he investigated the physiological mechanisms of adaptation of aquatic submergent plants to increased eutrophication in lakes in south-west China. Andrew has published four papers in international journals and has over 10 years of experience editing papers in the Life Sciences, in subjects ranging from Botany, Marine Biology, Freshwater Biology, Environmental Toxicology, Ecology, Environmental Science, to Plant Biochemistry. Andrew has been editing with Oxford Science Editing for 6 years.

Andrew also regularly prepares written resources for dissemination of current or emerging science for different focus groups, including public service practitioners and members of the private sector, for example, on climate change, and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Freya O’Connell, MSc

Freya obtained her BSc in Plant Biology from the University of St Andrews then went on to complete a Masters in Plant Taxonomy and Biodiversity at the University of Edinburgh, in conjunction with the world-renowned Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, where her research project focused on the development of illustrated field identification keys.

Freya has 20 years’ experience in copy-editing and proof-reading, 15 of which were based in Japan, where she worked both in-house and freelance for two of the country’s leading English language editing companies. Her areas of expertise include botany, plant taxonomy and biodiversity, as well as environmental and biological science.

Freya is also a CELTA-qualified English language teacher, with more than 15 years’ experience teaching English as a Foreign Language to non-native speakers of all ages.