Elizabete Carmo-Silva

Elizabete is an expert on the regulation of carbon assimilation by Rubisco in crop plants, especially wheat and cowpea. She leads a research team that aims to understand and improve the efficiency of photosynthesis to optimise the sustainability and climate resilience of crop production.

She received her undergraduate degree in applied plant biology at the University of Lisbon, where she went on to earn her PhD researching photosynthesis and photorespiration in C4 grasses. She specialized on the regulation of Rubisco by its molecular chaperone Rubisco activase as a postdoctoral researcher with the USDA-ARS, then started exploring this knowledge for crop improvement as a research scientist at Rothamsted Research. She joined Lancaster University in 2015 to start a research group that focuses on Rubisco regulation in crops.