Steering group

Rosie Hails chairs the Natural Capital Initiative steering group and is a Section Head at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, which is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council. She was involved in some of the first experiments on genetically modified plants in natural habitats, and is currently developing risk assessment protocols centred on population modelling. Rosie has worked at the interface between science and policy as a member of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission. She is currently a member of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment which advises UK government on scientific matters relating to genetically modified plants and non-native plants and animals, and a member of the Environment Working group for the European Food Safety Authority. She is a Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford, a research associate of Oxford University and a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University. She was awarded an MBE for services to environmental research in June 2000.

Laura oversees science policy advice activities at the Society of Biology which engages with government, funding agencies, academia, industry, education and the public sphere. She is interested in how science is used for public good and works to promote the use of evidence generated by biologists in policy development. Her postdoctoral research was on human inflammatory cell biology and she has a masters degree in Science, Culture and Environment.

Michael Depledge is Professor of Environment and Human Health at Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (Universities of Exeter and Plymouth). He is also a founding board member of Natural England, Chairman of the Science Advisory Group (Environment and Climate) for DG-Research at the European Commission, and a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. As a leading specialist in the impact of the environment on human health and wellbeing, he advises both UNEP and the World Health Organization, and has published extensively on diverse aspects of toxicology and ecotoxicology in the international scientific literature. He holds an honorary position at Oxford University, and has formerly held honorary positions at Imperial College and Harvard University School of Public Health, he was formerly the Chief Scientific Advisor of the Environment Agency of England and Wales (2002-2006).

Jim Harris is Professor of Environmental Technology at Cranfield University. His work has covered everything from the practicalities of providing objective ecosystem measures of the success of restoration programmes, through to the interaction of governance and science, setting conceptual frameworks for restoration ecology and assessment, management and enhancement of ecosystem services. Jim is a member of British Ecological Society’s Ecosystem Services Advisory Group, the Board of the Society for Ecological Restoration International, Council of the British Society of Soil Science, a Peer Review Panel Member for Defra’s Ecosystem Approach Programme, and is a Co-ordinating Editor for Restoration Ecology.

Sarah Kemmitt has a strong background in environmental science and the third sector. Having worked in conservation management and founded a community agroforestry cooperative, she has also enjoyed a fruitful scientific career in soil microbial ecology at Rothamsted Research.

Sarah left the laboratory to pursue a unique opportunity at the British Library where she researched and built relationships with the wider environmental science community, enabling the BL to innovate in response to changing information needs. Having moved to the Financial Services Authority, Sarah is developing expertise in financial systems, business and regulation.

Johanna Kieniewicz is the Environmental Science Research Officer at The British Library and acts as a link between the Library and the environmental science research community. In her role at the Library, she works to understand how environmental science information is acquired, used and disseminated and how that research can have the greatest impact. This involves understanding information use behaviours across the environment sector from academics to policymakers, engagement activities with the environmental science research community, and collaborating with the Science, Technology and Medicine team at the Library on a demonstrator service to streamline discovery of information about flooding. Johanna has a strong interest in human/environment interaction; her PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Washington University in St Louis focused on palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the Western Desert of Egypt during Middle Stone Age occupation.

Barbara Knowles is Senior Science Policy Adviser to the Society of Biology. Her main professional interest is communicating science to non-specialists. Previous jobs include Assistant Director, Science in Society, at the Office of Science and Technology; and Deputy Head of Communications at the Natural Environment Research Council. As a researcher at the University of Cambridge, she investigated how a family of biological insecticides works. She works part time, and spends the rest of her time supporting projects on wetland and meadow ecology, rural development and traditional agriculture in Transylvania.

Paul Leonard is an environmental consultant, based near London and has worked in core government departments and scientific institutions for nearly 40 years. He has specialised in the delivery of science–based evidence to meet policy needs, primarily in the aquatic environment. He has a long-term interest in the design and management of aquatic environmental monitoring programmes from point and diffuse sources. His work has included science audits, advising on the adequacy of current operations and future needs at government laboratories and industry. He is a registered Expert Witness and member of the UK Environmental Law Association.

Ceri Margerison is Policy Manager at the British Ecological Society (BES), working to ensure that policy decisions are built on the best available scientific evidence. Ceri joined the BES in November 2007, motivated by a keen interest in environmental issues, having previously worked as Policy Officer at the Medical Schools Council for two years, dealing with higher education and NHS policy. Whilst at the BES Ceri has facilitated schemes to help to connect members of the Society with policy-makers, including establishing a policy training workshop for early-career researchers, in partnership with the NERC. Ceri has a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

Hugh Montgomery is Director of the Institute of Human Health and Performance at University College London (UCL), a clinical doctor in Intensive Care Medicine, founding member of UCL-Lancet Commission on climate change and human health, and keen science communicator. He has extensive media experience, is the author of several books and was the Royal Institution Christmas Lecturer in 2007. Hugh uses genetic tools to explore human physiology and pathophysiology in novel ways. His group developed the concept of investigation using gene-environment interactions.

Ece Ozdemiroglu, the founding director of eftec, mainly works with economic valuation methods and how to incorporate economic value evidence into decision-making both in terms of policy and project design and appraisal. She has worked on several large scale infrastructure and policy reform studies providing economic value evidence. Recently she has coordinated REMEDE (Resource Equivalency Methods for Environmental Damage in the EU) – an EU 6th Framework supported research project on the use of resource equivalency methods for implementing the Environmental Liability Directive. Since 1992, Ece has worked on over 200 projects, the majority of which she has managed. Her clients include most UK government departments, the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility and the governments of Turkey, the Netherlands, South Africa, PR of China and Mongolia among others. She has co-edited or co-authored 11 books and contributed to several articles and conference papers. Her latest book (with Dr Paul Hardisty) concerns the utilisation of economic analysis for making decisions about cleaning contaminated groundwater. The book, entitled “Economics of Groundwater Remediation and Protection” is targeted to technical experts working on remediation projects and is published by CRC Press in the US.

Ece studied Economics at Istanbul University and Environmental and Resource Economics at University College London. She works in English and Turkish.

Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Essex, where he was Head of Department from 2004-08. His books include Nature and Culture (co-edited & forthcoming, 2010), This Luminous Coast (forthcoming, 2010), The Earth Only Endures (2007), Environment (4 vols, ed 2006), The Sage Handbook on Environment and Society (2007, co-ed), The Pesticide Detox (2005), Agri-Culture (2002) and Regenerating Agriculture (1995). He is a Fellow of the Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Arts, and has served on advisory committees for a number of government departments. He is a regular speaker, contributor to media, and presenter of the 1999 BBC Radio 4 series Ploughing Eden, a contributor and writer for the 2001 BBC TV Correspondent programme The Magic Bean, and a panellist in 2007 for Radio 4’s The Moral Maze. He received a 1997 international award from the Indian Ecological Society, was appointed A D White Professor-at-Large by Cornell University (2001-07), received an honorary degree from Ohio State University in 2009, and is Chief Editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture. His website is at www.julespretty.com

Professor O’Riordan is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. He received an OBE in 2010, is a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Norfolk, served as Sheriff of Norwich (2009-10), and is a Fellow of the British Academy. He holds an MA in Geography from the University of Edinburgh, an MS in Water Resources Engineering from Cornell University, and a PhD in Geography from the University of Cambridge.

He has edited a number of key books on the institutional aspects of global environmental change, policy and practice, led two international research projects on the transition to sustainability in the European Union (1995-2002) and edited two editions of the text book, Environmental Science for Environmental Management. Professor O’Riordan is European Advisor to the UK Sustainable Development Commission and a member of Sustainability East, the East of England Sustainable Development Round Table. His research deals with the themes associated with better governance for sustainability. He is also active in the evolution of sustainability science partnerships. His direct work relates to designing future coastlines in East Anglia in England so that they are ready for sea level rise and the creation of sound economies and societies for a sustainable future. He is a core member of the Prince of Wales' seminar on Business and the Environment. He has many contacts with the business world. He is an assessor for the Prince of Wales Accounting for Sustainability project. He sits on the Corporate Responsibility Body for Asda plc, and also on the Growth and Climate Change Panel for Anglian Water Group. Professor O’Riordan is also Executive Editor of Environment Magazine.

His other research interests cover interdisciplinary approaches to pursuing the transition to sustainability, risk perception and communication, business and social virtue. Tim O’Riordan plays classical double bass in a Norwich orchestra, which he has chaired for over 25 years.

Allan Watt is Deputy Director of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology's Biodiversity Research Programme and a Section Head, covering research on terrestrial and aquatic ecology at CEH Edinburgh. His research covers the development of methods for monitoring biodiversity, assessing the impact of land use change and other drivers of biodiversity loss, quantifying ecosystem services and identifying and managing conflicts between human activities and the conservation of biodiversity. He has been involved in 11 European (EU-funded) projects on biodiversity and currently convenes the ALTER-Net summer schools on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. He previously worked on biodiversity in tropical and temperate forests. He is active in the development of science policy and is currently on the steering committee of the European Platform for Biodiversity Research Strategy.

William Watts is a Principal Economist for The Environment Agency, working on ecosystem valuation and the economics of hazardous chemical regulation, as well as project appraisal issues in the area of Flood Risk Management. He has a Masters degree in Natural Resource Economics, and has previously been Economic Advisor to the UK Government (Department for the Environment, now Defra) and Research Manager and Principal Administrator for the European Commission.