Janet Sprent is Emeritus Professor of Plant Biology in the University of Dundee. She retired fully in 1998 having served as Dean of Science and Engineering and Deputy Principal (Research and Estates). She has now returned to active research on nodulation in legumes and is widely asked to give special and plenary lectures: in 2010 she was awarded an Hon DAg from SLU Uppsala. Current major international collaborations are in Australia, South Africa, Brazil, India and the US as well as more locally (Sweden and York) and she now tends to give her address as 'of no fixed scientific abode'. As part of a programme to develop S. African perennial legumes for use in the Australian wheat best, a new species of nodulating Burkholderia is being designated B.sprentiae.
Janet has worked with the Institute in Dundee for over 30 years, beginning when it was the Scottish Horticultural Research Institute. At present she works with the Institute's agroecology group. In order to concentrate on research she is reducing the number of other commitments such as Macaulay Development Trust, but retaining membership of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the EU programme 'Legume Futures' and being a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. In her plenary lecture at the 6th International Legume Conference in Johannesburg (January 2013) she launched the Interactive Legume Database on Nodulation which will occupy any spare time.
