RELU: Memory and Prediction in Tree Disease Control: Team


	Home The Project People Project News Publications Contact Us Links

	People

	Dr Clive Potter: Principal Investigator personal web page Dr Clive Potter is Reader in Environmental Policy in the Centre for Environmental Policy and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Politics, University of Exeter. His main research interests concern the nature of rural policy change, governance and environmental sustainability in industrialised countries. Clive is particularly interested in the way agricultural restructuring and land use change over long periods promises to challenge traditional constructions of nature in European rural space and in the opportunities this creates for rethinking the relationship between agriculture, forestry and the environment. His research ranges from empirical research investigating the drivers and biodiversity consequences of countryside change at the level of farms and within different landscape settings through to analyses and critiques of the policy discourses and institutional processes which frame the way we understand and deliberate on these processes in the public sphere. Dr Isobel Tomlinson: Research Associate Isobel Tomlinson joined Imperial College in November 2007 as a postdoctoral research associate on the RELU project ‘Lessons from Dutch Elm Disease in Assessing the Threat from Sudden Oak Death’. She studied first at the LSE with a BSc in Environmental Policy and Management and then moved to the geography department at UCL to do a Masters degree in ‘Public Understanding of Environmental Change’. Her PhD, also at UCL, was an examination of the development of UK Government policy on organic food and farming over the last 25 years. She has particular research interests in the politics of alternative agriculture in the UK, the evolution of alternative food networks, and policy for the development of local and sustainable food provisioning systems. Before coming to Imperial College, she was a teaching fellow in the geography department at Keele University. Dr Tom Harwood: Research Associate personal web page Tom Harwood is a spatial ecological modeller, who joined Imperial College in September 2007. Prior to this he was a Research Fellow and Sessional Lecturer at the University of Reading for 8 years where he modelled the implications of the horticultural trade structure and inspections on the spread of Sudden Oak Death, the transmission and subsequent dispersal of transgenes at a national scale and developed a range of crop scheduling systems. His PhD. at the University of Edinburgh simulated the feedback between plant stand structure and microclimate which drives ecological competition under climate change. This was followed by two years as a software engineer. learning to develop reliable user friendly software. Tom's main focus is the delivery of near market policy and management support systems to improve the ecological decision making process. Dr Joan Webber: Co-Investigator Dr. Joan Webber is the principal pathologist at Forest Research, the research Agency of the UK Forestry Commission. Her research is focussed on tree and wood pathology, in particular the population biology and management of forest pathogens, and insect transmission of sapstain and vascular wilt diseases. She has been directly involved in much of the key research and monitoring of Dutch Elm Disease and P. ramorum and P. kernoviae amongst many other tree diseases. Joan also supervises postgraduate students. At a more practical level she advises on quarantine issues related to tree and forest pathogens. Dr Susana Mourato: Co-Investigator personal web page Susana is an economist, specialising in environmental economics, and an expert in the application of economic valuation techniques to the measurement of environmental, social and cultural change. She joined Imperial College in 1998 after completing a PhD in Economics at University College London. She is currently Reader in Environmental Economics, Senior Tutor and Co-Convenor of the Environmental Economics & Policy Option of the MSc Environmental Technology at the Centre for Environmental Policy. Susana's research falls within a key field of study of modern environmental economics: the field of environmental valuation, which is concerned with uncovering the economic value of non-market environmental changes. Her current research is clustered around 5 key themes: Valuing natural wealth and creating markets for ecosystem services; Public perceptions, preferences and behaviour in a low-carbon economy; Developing and testing stated preference methods;Novel applications of non-market valuation to public policy; Life satisfaction and the environment. Dr Jon Knight: Co-Investigator personal web page Dr Jon Knight is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Environmental Policy. His research has developed from purely ecological studies of agricultural pests to examining both the biological and institutional aspects of environmental management problems particularly relating to pest control. This has resulted in research covering not just scientific aspects but also elements of economics and social science. His goal has been to develop more sustainable approaches to agricultural production and better focussed solutions to environmental management problems through a fuller and more considered understanding of the constraints that exist within the various components of the systems. Solutions to these problems have been sought by utilising three main approaches. Firstly, systems analysis of environmental, agricultural and pest problems, particularly focusing on understanding the stakeholder perspectives, secondly, modelling of temporal and spatial elements of the problem and finally developing solutions and decision support mechanisms arising from the modelling and wider analysis. Dr Sharon Matthews-Berry: Co-Investigator Dr Sharon Matthews-Berry has a broad experience of plant pathogens and their control. She spent nearly 10 years at various universities, studying and undertaking research on pathology and physiology of wheat and potatoes as well as diagnostic work on seed and ware potatoes. In 2004 she moved into Defra's Plant Quarantine Service, joining CSL as a Plant Health Consultant providing advice on all aspects of plant quarantine to Plant Health Division and the Plant Health and Seed Inspectorate. Since this date she has specialised in the control and eradication of quarantine diseases and certification of seed potatoes, soft fruit and top fruit. She has been involved in eradication campaigns for many outbreaks including Phytophthora ramorum, potato ringrot and brown rot, Xanthomonas fragariae in strawberries and viroids in tomato production. In addition Sharon is a BASIS qualified advisor. Dr Simon Leather: Co-Investigator personal web page Dr Simon Leather is Reader in Applied Ecology in the Division of Biology within the Department of Life Sciences. He spent ten years working in the Forest Research Division of the Forestry Commission as a member of the Entomology Branch, before moving to Imperial College in 1992. His main research interests centre on problems in applied ecology. These include biological control of insect pests of temperate and tropical agricultural and forestry crops; pest forecasting; effects of climate change on pest populations; acquisition of native pests by alien crop species; agroforestry and the conflicts between pest management and conservation and urban ecology and habitat creation. Simon is particularly interested in how climate change and changes in land use will affect the pest status of native organisms ad well as influencing the arrival of exotics in both agricultural and silvicultural environments. His research ranges from controlled laboratory experiments to intensive field work studies and involves collaboration across a number of different agencies.