Abby Davis is an American PhD student at UNE who is changing the world though her love of flies and pollination.

While presenting the result of her honour project at an international pollinator conference, Abby Davis met UNE Senior Lecturer in Community Ecology, Dr Romina Rader. Dr. Rader at the time was looking for a PhD student to study how effective, or successful, flies are at pollinating crops. After applying and successfully attaining the PhD position, Abby backing her life into a suit case and made the decision to move down under to work alongside Dr Romina. Now Abby is well and truly in the first year of her PhD, conducting experiments and research at UNE, along the east coast and (hopefully) soon in Tasmania.

Despite being away from family in New York and landing at UNE moments before a global pandemic outbreak, Abby’s passion, love and enthusiasm for what she is doing is contagious and her drive is something that won’t be stopped. She has a love for all things nature, especially flies, and she brings a valuable, joyful and forever smiling ambiance to the campus.

Yesterday, I got the pleasure to catch up with Abby via Zoom to discuss her journey, her PhD and her short but sweet time spent so far at UNE.

Enjoy.

Twitter: @notsocrabbyabby & @RaderLab

Interview and words by Harrison Munday.

Thanks to Tune!FM for uploading the podcast to their channel.