Ottoline Leyser is a geneticist and associate director of the Sainsbury Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. After post-doctoral research at Indiana University and Cambridge, she built an independent research program at the University of York, where she worked from 1994 to 2010. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 New Years Honours list. Leyser serves as coeditor in chief of Current Opinions in Plant Biology. More about her work can be found at www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/research/ottolineleyser.html.