Emily Symington

I graduated from Trinity College Dubin, the University of Dublin in 2024 with a B.A. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, having specialised in Botany.  

I consequently began my first year of a Research Master’s in 2024, which is funded by Trinity. My project focuses on the chocolate tree, Theobroma cacao L., and its crop wild relatives (CWRs). Chocolate is under threat by climate change, as it is vulnerable to drought. My research aims to use herbarium occurrence data and species distribution models to predict the ranges of T. cacao and its CWRs under various future IPCC climate-warming scenarios. The results of which will provide insight into determining which CWRs are best candidates for genes and traits that may be useful in breeding drought resistant varieties of cacao, as well as providing the first, data-driven conservation status estimates of CWRs under IUCN criteria. 

I aim to acquire further funding in order to extend this MSc into a PhD.  

Project Supervisors: 

• Dr. Peter Moonlight 

• Dr. John Connolly 

• Dr. James Richardson