I attended Dr Challoner's Grammar School, Amersham, and was awarded the Prize for Natural History. During this time, my main interest was natural history, and especially collecting butterflies and moths. It was at Manchester that I became interested in palaeontology. I brought zoological interpretations to invertebrate fossils, an approach which had previously been mainly confined to vertebrates. Since eurypterids are extinct, I soon became interested in other chelicerates with living relatives which could provide direct comparisons, including horseshoe crabs and spiders.
Current work focuses on two main areas.
Funding of 136K was awarded by the Natural Environment Research Council for investigation of early terrestrial faunas, as reported in Science . I am continuing research on rare Mesozoic spiders, including Canadian Cretaceous amber spiders, Cretaceous spiders from Spain, and the beautifully preserved spider fauna from the Cretaceous Santana Formation of Brazil. The aim of this work is to help to elucidate phylogenetic relationships among the higher taxa of spiders as currently recognised and to test phylogenetic hypotheses based solely on Recent spiders. She has just finished a Foundation Course in Art and Design at Central St Martins College of Art and Design in London, where she will be doing the degree course in Design for Performance next year. The influence of the weather on the activity of moths during the night.