Scientific Advisory Forum

Professor Tom Addiscott is a Lawes Trust Senior Fellow at Rothamsted Research and a Visiting Professor at the University of East London. Much of his research has been devoted to modelling the processes which determine losses of nitrate from the soil, and this work led to the award of the Royal Agricultural Society of England Research Medal in 1991. He became strongly aware of the pitfalls of modelling, notably scale issues, error propagation and chaotic behaviour, and has studied these. He also developed an understanding of ‘sustainability’ based on entropy. He has a long-standing interest in all aspects of the nitrate issue, including nitrate and health, and has published two books covering the whole issue. He is currently a member of a European Food Safety Authority Working Group on nitrate in vegetables. 

Dr Jack Barrett received his PhD in Physical chemistry from Manchester. He did research into spectroscopy and photochemical kinetics and teaching at Chelsea College until it was subsumed by King's College London. After retiring from King's he was regenerated at Imperial College. He is the author of several textbooks about Inorganic Chemistry and the Bacterial Oxidation of Minerals and is especially interested in the science of climate change.

Professor Sir Colin Berry MD, DSc is Emeritus Professor of Pathology at Queen Mary College, London. He is a histopathologist with experience in the regulatory toxicology of materials, pesticides and pharmaceuticals for the UK government, the European Union and the WHO and FAO. He is interested in risk evaluation and assessment and the public communication of science - he is currently the Chairman of the Programme Committee of ESOF. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and of the Leopoldina and a Fellow of several colleges and faculties.

Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD is a science graduate who has worked with energy economists and emission modellers (at SPRU, Sussex), international lawyers (Munich) and geographers (Hull, where she is currently a Reader in Geography), teaching environmental policy and politics. She has published widely on the science-politics interactions of marine pollution control (Law of the Sea), acidification (European legislation to prevent 'dying forests') and, since the early 1990s, on the science politics and energy policy implications of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). She edits the Multi-Science journal 'Energy& Environment'. 

Mark Cantley has degrees in Mathematics, Economics, Operational Research, and Accounting and Finance. From 1999 to mid-2006 he was Adviser in the Directorate for Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food, of the Directorate-General for Research, of the European Commission, and prior to that headed the OECD’s Biotechnology Unit. Earlier in his career, he worked in operational research and corporate and strategic planning. He has written extensively for professional and general publications. 

Professor Anthony Dayan is retired Professor of Toxicology, University of London. He has worked in the pharmaceutical industry and has been adviser to official UK and international advisory bodies and industries dealing with medicines, biotechnology products, food, pesticides, pollution, chemical and other industries and occupational health. 

Professor Mick Fuller is Professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Plymouth and Head of Graduate School. He is the former Head of the Department of Agriculture and Food Studies at Plymouth and visiting Professor at the University of Southern Queensland, The Leslie Research Institute, Queensland, and the University of Angers. He is an active researcher in the field of plant stress physiology, plant biotechnology and crop science. He is sub-Editor of the European Journal of Agronomy, an Executive Committee Member for the UK Council for Graduate Education and a Trustee for the Vegetable Research Trust and the UK Controlled Environment Users Group.

David Henderson was formerly Head of the Economics and Statistics Department of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and was a Reith lecturer. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London and chairs the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Professor Michael Laughton is Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University of London and currently Visiting Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at Imperial College. He was formerly Pro-Principal of Queen Mary and Westfield College and Dean of Engineering of the University of London. He is currently the UK representative on the Energy Committee of the European National Academies of Engineering (EuroCASE), a member of energy and environment policy advisory groups of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society and the Institution of Electrical Engineers as well as the Power Industry Division Board of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He has acted as Specialist Adviser to UK Parliamentary Committees in both upper and lower Houses on alternative and renewable energy technologies and on energy efficiency. 

Martin Livermore has a degree in chemistry from Oxford university. He worked for Unilever in a variety of R&D and technical management roles in the UK and overseas before joining Dalgety Food Ingredients and then DuPont, where he became responsible for external affairs and knowledge management. With colleagues from other major companies, he helped set up the Agricultural Biotechnology in Europe initiative. He now works with a number of companies and international associations on strategic communications, policy and technology issues in the food chain and is a co-founder of the Food Chain Research and Technology Network with Vivian Moses and Roger Turner. He is director of the Scientific Alliance.

After qualifying in medicine at the University of Wales and an early career as a doctor and then a physiology lecturer, Prof Maynard joined the Chemical Defence Establishment and rose to be Superintendent of the Medical Division. He then became head of the Air Pollution Unit at the Department of Health and recently retired as head of the Air Pollution and Noise Unit at the Health Protection Agency. He is an Honorary Professor at Birmingham University and Honorary Principal Fellow at the National Heart and Lung Institute.

Professor Vivian Moses is visiting Professor of Biotechnology at King's College London and of Biology at University College London and also Chairman of CropGen. He is Emeritus Professor of Microbiology at Queen Mary, University of London and Emeritus/ Founding Director of The Centre for Genetic Anthropology at UCL. He has various degrees in biochemistry and microbiology. 

Professor Anthony Trewavas is based at the Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, where is group studies molecular signalling. He is the author of over 220 papers and two books. His interests include plant behaviour, organic food, climate change, GM crops and environmentally-friendly farming. He is currently engaged mainly in academic pursuits, writing articles and a book. 

RogerTurner worked for the Shell Speciality Chemicals Division where he became International Development Manager, working in all five continents developing new chemicals for use in crop production and protection. He moved to Fisons Horticulture as R&D Director, responsible for new products for the North American and European markets, before becoming CEO at the British Society of Plant Breeders. He is on the Editorial Boards of several science journals including Outlooks in Pest Management, Crop Protection and World Agriculture.

Professor William Wilkinson read chemical engineering at Cambridge. He was Group Technical Director then Deputy Chief Executive of British Nuclear Fuels before retirement. He started his career with the UKAEA before moving to the University of Bradford as Professor of Chemical Engineering. After joining BNFL, he was for some time a Visiting Professor at Imperial College. He has served on several government committees, including the Advisory Committee on Research and Development and the Science Research Council.