Dr Chris Thorogood is a botanist at the University of Oxford, and an illustrator and public speaker. Chris's research areas include the evolution of parasitic and carnivorous plants and taxonomic diversity in biodiversity hotspots, such as the Mediterranean Basin. Chris won a scholarship in 2005 to carry out his PhD research on speciation in parasitic plants at the University of Bristol, for which he was awarded a Faculty Commendation, and the national Irene Manton Prize for best thesis in botany in 2009. Chris is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and a Junior Research Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford.