Current ACRE members are:

Professor Christopher Pollock CBE (Chairman)

Expertise: Plant physiology, biochemistry and plant breeding

Professor Pollock is the former Research Director of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research. His research interests include plant primary metabolism and response to environmental stress. He is an Honorary Professor at Aberystwyth University and is involved in a number of activities relating to agricultural research and policy. He is a member of the BBSRC Council and a non-executive director of the National Non-food Crops Centre.  He was acting chief scientific advisor to the First Minister of the Welsh Government and chair of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise Sub-panel for Agriculture, Veterinary and Food Science. First appointed to ACRE as a member on 18 June 1999. Appointed as chairman on 1 September 2003. Current term runs from 1 September 2009 to 31 August 2013.

Dr Kathy Bamford

Imperial College

Expertise: Medical Microbiology

Kathy Bamford is a consultant Medical Microbiologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHT) and Visiting Professor in the Dept Infectious Diseases and Immunity at Imperial College. She is a member of the Department of Health Gene Therapy Advisory Committee. Her expertise is in the aetiology diagnosis and management of human infection with research interests in the immunopathology and management of infection. She is medical microbiology lead in the development of the Centre for Infection Prevention and Management at ICHT, a Fellow and examiner for the Royal College of Pathologists. First appointed to ACRE on 12 March 2009. Current term runs from 12 March 2012 to 11 March 2015.

Dr Michael Bonsall

Department of Zoology, University of Oxford

Expertise: Entomology, evolutionary ecology, ecology and mathematical biology

Dr Michael Bonsall is a University Lecturer (Reader) in Mathematical Biology (Zoology) at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St. Peters College, Oxford. He has expertise in insect ecology and evolutionary biology. His work involves the application of mathematical methods to population biology and his research interests cover the areas of population dynamics, community ecology and evolutionary ecology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, the Royal Statistical Society, and has served on the Council of the British Ecological Society (2005-2008) and as a member of the NERC Peer Review College (2005-2009). He is on the editorial boards of Proceedings B, Ecology Letters, Theoretical Ecology and Ecological Entomology. First appointed to ACRE on 1 December 2007. Current term runs from 1 December 2010 to 30 November 2013.

Dr Rosemary Collier

University of Warwick

Expertise: Applied entomology, horticultural crops

Rosemary Collier is Director of the Warwick Crop Centre, which is part of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, and a visiting professor at Harper Adams University College.  She is an applied entomologist and her main research interests are modelling interactions between insects and the environment, the host-plant finding behaviour of plant-feeding insects and the development of Integrated Pest Management systems for the pests of field vegetable and bulb crops.  She is Course Leader for MSc courses on Sustainable Crop Production and Food Security.  She is a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, a member of the UK Insecticide Resistance Action Group and a member of the Royal Horticultural Society Science Committee. First appointed to ACRE on 1 September 2012 and this term runs until 31 August 2015.

Professor Jim Dunwell

University of Reading

Expertise: Plant biotechnology

Professor of Plant Biotechnology in the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development at the University of Reading. He has expertise in plant cell biology, and the production and utilisation of transgenic crops. His present research interests include studies of plant gene expression and the evolution of plant proteins. Joined ACRE in September 2003 as the ex-officio representative of ACNFP. Appointed as an ACRE member in his own right from 9 October 2006. Current term runs from 9 October 2012 to 8 October 2016.

Professor Les Firbank

University of Leeds

Expertise: agri-ecosystems

Les Firbank is based at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Leeds, where he is researching into the joint delivery of food and other ecosystem services from rural land, partly through the developing of multifunctional farming systems and partly through the standardisation of ecosystem monitoring data across Europe. He is on the Board of the Red Tractor scheme with responsibilities for developing environment standards for UK agricultural produce, and also undertakes consultancy. His research background is in large-scale interactions between farming and the environment, and led the UK farm-scale evaluations of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops. He is a member of the editorial boards of Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability and Journal of Environmental Management, was a Co-ordinating Lead Author for the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, and was Co-ordinating Lead Author for the Enclosed Farmland chapter of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. First appointed to ACRE on 26 October 2009. Current term runs from 26 October 2012 to 25 October 2015.

Professor Rosemary Hails MBE

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford

Expertise: Ecology, entomology

Prof Hails is the Science Director for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Science at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University. She was a member of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission 2000 – 2005. Her research interests include biological invasions of insects, plants and pathogens, how these invasions may affect the native communities, and the risk assessment of genetically modified plants and viruses. She is chair of the Natural Capital Initiative and sits on the Council for the Society of Biology and the British Ecological Society. She is also a member of the Natural Capital Committee, which reports to the Economic Affairs Committee. She was awarded an MBE for services to environmental research in June 2000. First appointed to ACRE on 9 October 2006. Current term runs from 9 October 2012 to 8 October 2016.

Dr Matthew Heard

NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford

Expertise: community ecology, plant population ecology, agricultural ecology, conservation science

Dr Heard is a research scientist at the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology where he leads the community ecology group. His work involves both community and population ecology and he is particularly interested in understanding interactions between plants and invertebrates. His research has been applied to species and habitat conservation, risk assessment of genetically modified plants and ecosystem restoration. He is particularly interested in interactions between farming and the environment. He was a co-ordinator of the UK farm-scale evaluations of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops, is a member of the NERC Peer Review College and an advisor to the Knepp Rewilding Project. First appointed to ACRE on 26 October 2012 and this term runs until 25 October 2015.

Professor David Hopkins

Heriot-Watt University

Expertise: soil biology and biochemistry

David Hopkins is Professor of Environmental Biology and Head of the School of Life Sciences at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. He is a specialist in soil biology and biochemistry with major interests in nutrient cycling, soil management in agricultural systems, and the decomposition of residues from plants with genetic modifications, having worked in two plant systems – plants with genetic modifications to lignin biosynthesis and plants with the insecticidal Bt modification.  He also has a long-standing interest in the ecology of polar regions including 10 summer seasons undertaking field work in Antarctica. He is a former President of the British Society of Soil Science, Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Fellow, and he has also enjoyed enduring research collaborations with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the British Antarctic Survey and Antarctica New Zealand. He studied at Manchester Polytechnic and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne where he also undertook postdoctoral research, and he has held academic positions in the Universities of Dundee, Stirling and Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand).  Until 2010, he was Director of Science at the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) in Dundee, now part of the James Hutton Institute. First appointed to ACRE on 11 April 2011 and this term runs until 10 April 2014.

Dr Ieuan Joyce

Farmer, Ceredigion and Herefordshire

Expertise: Farming practice

Ieuan Joyce manages in partnership a mixed farm integrating nature conservation and food production objectives. He was a board member of the Countryside Council for Wales and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee until April, 2013, and is a former lecturer in animal science at the University of Leeds with research interests in mammalian reproductive genetics. He is a member of the Upland Forum, advising the Welsh Assembly Government on rural issues, and a trustee of the Elan Valley Trust which manages the 40,000 acre Elan Valley estate on behalf of Dwr Cymru. First appointed to ACRE on 26 October 2009. Current term runs from 26 October 2012 to 25 October 2015

Simon Kerr

National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB)

Expertise: Agronomy 

Simon Kerr is Head of Regional Trials at NIAB, where he has responsibility for NIAB’s field trials across 10 regional centres with a range of arable, vegetable and forage crops. He has direct experience of supervising GM crop trials and serves as a technical expert for Fera for combinable crop, sugar beet and potato variety decisions for the purposes of National Listing. First appointed to ACRE on 1 September 2012 and this term runs until 31 August 2015.

Professor Keith Lindsey

Durham University

Expertise: Plant molecular biology

Professor Lindsey is Director of Research and Professor of Plant Molecular Biology in the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Durham University. He has expertise in the mechanisms of gene function, particularly in relation to how plants grow and develop. He is President of the Society for Experimental Biology and a Fellow of the Society of Biology. He was appointed as a member of the council of the BBSRC for four years from 1 April 2010. First appointed to ACRE on 1 September 2003. Current term runs from 1 September 2009 until 31 August 2013.

Professor Andrew Peters

Arpexas Consultancy Ltd.

Expertise: clinical development and regulation of vaccines

Professor Peters runs his own consultancy business Arpexas Ltd. specialising in vaccine research, development regulation and knowledge transfer. He also has considerable experience in reproductive biology with a current research interest in immunocontraceptive vaccines. He also holds a special professorship in animal science at the University of Nottingham. First appointed to ACRE on 9 October 2006. Current term runs from 9 October 2012 until 8 October 2016.