1. Ottoline Leyser was educated at Wychwood School in Oxford and the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate student of Newnham College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1986 followed by a PhD in Genetics in 1990 for research supervised by Ian Furner.
Ottoline Leyser then took part in the formation of the independently funded Sainsbury Laboratory at Cambridge, and was that institute's director from 2013 to 2020.
Ottoline Leyser was elected Regius Professor of Botany at Cambridge in the same year.
Ottoline Leyser was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007.
Ottoline Leyser has made unique and central contributions to understanding of development.
Ottoline Leyser played a world-leading role in promoting Arabidopsis as a key model organism in modern biology and has provided leadership to the Arabidopsis research community through the resource network GARNet.
Ottoline Leyser was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 New Year Honours.
Ottoline Leyser was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics from 2009 to 2015, and a member of the Council's Working Party on Biofuels.
Ottoline Leyser was elected a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2012.
Ottoline Leyser has been a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina since 2014.
Ottoline Leyser was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to plant science, science in society, and equality and diversity in science.
Ottoline Leyser married Stephen John Day in 1986 and has one son and one daughter.
Ottoline Leyser has been a guest of Jim Al-Khalili on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific multiple times.