Lena Grinsted

Lena Grinsted is a Senior Lecturer in Zoology at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Portsmouth, UK, a position she has held since 2020. She serves as Chair of the Faculty Staff Network for Mental Health First Aiders, School Lead for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Culture, and is a member of the School EDI Committee and University AWERB Committee. She is affiliated with both the Ecology and Evolution Research Group and the Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology at the University.

Dr. Grinsted earned her PhD in Evolutionary Biology from Aarhus University, Denmark (2010-2013), following an MSc in Biology from the University of Copenhagen (2006-2009) and a BSc in Biology from the same institution (2003-2006). Her research focuses on the evolution of group living, using spiders as primary model organisms. She investigates how animals evolve to balance the benefits of group living with the costs of competition for resources. Her work spans cooperative breeding, helping behavior, adoption of foreign offspring, and group foraging strategies.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent focus on social spider behavior and evolution, with increasing interdisciplinary expansion into environmental science applications (particularly plastic pollution effects) and science education reform. Her research combines field observations with controlled experiments to understand evolutionary adaptations to group living across multiple taxa.

• Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellowship

Dr. Grinsted actively supervises multiple PhD and MRes students, with research topics spanning spider behavior, primate welfare, and biological control applications. She has secured research funding including a GeneWiz grant for spider genome assembly. Her collaborative network spans institutions across the UK, Europe, North America, and Indonesia, reflecting the international nature of her research on social spiders and evolutionary biology.

She maintains active involvement in laboratory research through the Ecology and Evolution Research Group and the Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology, while also leading initiatives related to mental health, wellbeing, and equity, diversity and inclusion within the university community.