Sandpits 2018

We are delighted to announce that we held a very successful first sandpit event on the 26th and 27th February at the Rothamsted Research Campus in Harpenden. We ran two sandpits concurrently over the two days: 'Transforming Food Supply Chains for a Sustainable Future' and 'Measuring the Ground Truth' and saw a great total of 11 pitches at the end of the day on the 27th.

Congratulations again to the two winning pitches (details as follows) and thanks again and good luck to our other attendees who will hopefully be submitting their pitches to our open funding call

Winner of the Supply Chain Sandpit:

Project APROV - Augmented Procurement Visibility - Developing the self organising capability of agricultural procurement systems
Investigators - Luciano Batista - University of Northampton, Ram Ramanathan - University of Bedfordshire, Tom Kirkham - STFC, Brian Matthews- STFC
Executive Summary - According to WRAP*, approximately 10 million tonnes of food are annually wasted post farmgate in the UK, with 29% of this total being wasted in the supply chain, before reaching households. This study will address this problem by investigating alternatives to develop the self-organising capability of agricultural logistics and related procurement systems. The objective of the project is to develop a feasibility study on how food supply chains can respond in advance to the risks associated with unforeseen disruptions undermining the continuation of food distribution processes.
The study will seek to enhance food security and supply chain resilience by specifying highly responsive procurement systems enabled by cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, Big Data analytics, and Blockchain platforms that provide food sector stakeholders with timely and reliable access to information on food provenance and quality across the value chain. The project will involve two methodological approaches that entail active participation of key stakeholders from the industry and scientific community: (1.) Delphi study and (2.) Focus group.

Winner of the Ground Truth Sandpit:

​Continuous Ammonia Monitoring for AGriculture - CAMAG 
Investigators - Lizzie Sagoo – ADAS, Fangjie Zhao – Rothamsted/Nanjing,China, Brian Ellison – STFC-RAL Space
Executive Summary - Ammonia (NH3) is an atmospheric pollutant of international environmental concern. Its release into the atmosphere is predominantly associated with agricultural use; particularly from livestock where, for example, it is lost from grazing, housing, hard-standings, manure storage and land spreading. Within the UK, about 80% of agricultural ammonia emissions are also from livestock, with the remaining 20% from mineral fertilizer application. International targets aimed at achieving emission reduction have therefore been established and methods of abatement relating to, for example, optimizing slurry application, incorporation and storage have been identified. Ensuring adequate abatement requires precise detection and continuous monitoring of NH3. To achieve this, the CAMAG project will both apply and explore an advanced gas sensing technique, originally developed for radio astronomy research, that detects the natural microwave spectral emission signature of NH3. The accuracy of the methodology will be determined and assessed, and its performance compared with alternative sensing methods.

Thanks also to all of our fantastic speakers who inspired us over the two days - You can see some of Tuesdays presentations from the BBSRC, STFC, GFS and InnovateUK here:

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Further details on the sandpits: 

The sandpits began with speed meetings to enable new connections between agri/food and STFC, followed by time for new proposals to be developed collaboratively. Each sandpit culminated with presentations of proposals bidding for <8k of SFN funding, with the best one being selected by the sandpit participants. The remainder were then invited to submit their proposals for the general call for SFN funding. 

Sandpit 1: Transforming Food Supply Chains for a Sustainable Future
This Sandpit focused  on how STFC data science methods, technologies and facilities could be used to transform agri-food supply chain towards a sustainable and resilient supply chain. It investigated how to utilise different data sets and disruptive technologies for increasing traceability, transparency, collaboration and maximising value for all stakeholders in the supply chain.

Sandpit 2: Measuring the Ground Truth
This Sandpit focused on how STFC technology and image analysis methods can help with assessing soil, specifically:

  • Long terms changes in soil carbon sequestration
  • High spatial resolution Earth Observation (EO) to understand changes in soil moisture over short (seasonal) temporal cycles (so farmers can optimise water)
  • Use of EO at high spatial resolution to understand changes in soil chemistry
  • Novel EO techniques to understand changes to ground water (gravimetric approaches) but at improved spatial resolutions (country rather than continent!)
  • Technology to collect better ground truth data 

Our confirmed attendees were as follows:


Measuring the Ground Truth:

  • Yoseph Araya - The Open University

    Yoseph Araya is a plant ecologist with research interest in the functional relationships between plants and their environment (particularly water and nutrients). Yoseph's work has involved experimental studies into plant ecophysiological responses as well as field level observations of plant coexistence at regional scales, specifically in the UK, Spain and South Africa. Other strands of Yoseph's research include Citizen Science i.e. using volunteered environmental information from the public to work in partnership with professional scientists. This approach helps to overcome spatial and temporal data scarcity, while simultaneously help raise awareness and engagement with stakeholders​.

  • Kathryn Berger - Agrimetrics

    Kathryn Berger is a Senior Data Scientist at Agrimetrics. Her background is in the use of data science approaches to answer larger environmental questions. Kathryn integrates data models, remote sensed imagery and geospatial analysis to solve real-world problems throughout the agri-food supply chain. Kathryn holds a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Rhode Island (USA), having previously worked and collaborated with both universities and government organisations to develop spatially-explicit models to inform risk assessment and disease surveillance systems before moving to the UK three years ago.

  • Clive Blacker - Precision Decisions

    ​Clive Blacker is the CEO of Precision Decisions Ltd, a leading company providing comprehensive precision farming services. Through his consulting services to the world’s largest agri-engineering companies, Clive has gained extensive knowledge of the global market including Africa. In 2004 his Nuffield Scholarship on Precision Agriculture took him through Europe, Australia and the U.S.A. His keen enthusiasm and vast knowledge lead him to diversify away from the family farm and start his own business helping farmers around the world adopt and integrate precision farming techniques and application

  • Rene Breton - University of Manchester

    Rene Breton is a Reader in Astrophysics at The University of Manchester specialising on the study of binary pulsar systems across the full electromagnetic spectrum as well as building digital backends for high time resolution radio observations. His primary research interest is in using binary pulsars as tools to test theories of gravity, to constrain the properties of matter at ultra-high densities, and to investigate the extreme interaction of pulsars with their environment. Recently, Rene became interested in the issues related to global food security. He has just started a research programme involving the use of remote sensing to enhance the monitoring of agricultural land.

  • Sarah Bridle - University of Manchester

    ​Sarah is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Manchester and held a Royal Society URF and ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants. She is author of over 70 publications with over 3500 citations. Most of her work has focussed on trying to uncover the nature of dark energy using gravitational lensing - the bending of light by dark matter. She led the first cosmology constraints from the biggest ongoing cosmological imaging survey, the Dark Energy Survey. She has recently diversified her research interests to applying her cosmology image analysis and modelling experience to agriculture and food research

  • Anthony Brown - Durham University

    Anthony works within the gamma-ray astronomy group of Durham University's Centre for Advanced Instrumentation. He obtained his PhD from Durham University in 2007, after which he took up research positions in the UK, France and New Zealand. He has expertise in the construction and operation of equipment in harsh environments and in analysing background-dominated data. He founded and leads the airborne instrumentation group in Durham, and his work has received funding from STFC and the Royal Society. 

  • Genoveva Burca - ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, STFC

    Dr Genoveva Burca is instrument scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, ISIS Facility on the IMAT instrument dedicated to both neutron imaging and diffraction measurements. Having a background in Mathematics and Physics she earned a PhD in Materials Science with a thesis on combining imaging and diffraction instrumentation and experimentation. Her main research interests are in neutron imaging and diffraction techniques and their applications to life sciences and engineering being also responsible for the implementation of neutron diffraction capabilities on IMAT. She is co-supervisor for PhD students from Southampton University and Cranfield University and research supervisor for SEPnet students at ISIS.

  • Louise Butcher - STFC Hartree

    I am currently working as a Data Scientist at the STFC Hartree Centre. My main focus is on analysis of geospatial data including both satellite data and GPS/sensors. Prior to that, I worked on computer vision and face recognition at the University of Manchester, leading to a spin out company to exploit the technology. I have had a varied and interesting career, working across both academic and commercial research; my PhD work was in Laser Spectroscopy, after which I spent a spell in commercial R&D fro Pilkington, exploring the spectroscopic and thermal properties of glass to be used in cars.

  • Jeroen Meersmans - Cranfield University

    Dr. Jeroen Meersmans research focuses on conducting detailed assessments of the spatial and temporal dynamics of soil organic carbon (SOC) considering field, catchment, regional and national scales, with a more specific focus on following key factors and processes: (i) Modelling climate change & land use change impacts on past & future national scale SOC budgets, (ii) Investigating soil type, agro-management and erosion impacts on soil C input and mineralization. (iii) Assessing lateral fluxes of organic matter and sediments across the terrestrial aquatic continuum. (iv) Downscaling of large scale spatial distributions of SOC controlling climate variables, such as precipitation. 

  • Joe Fennell - University of Manchester

    Joe Fennell obtained a PhD in biology from Lancaster University investigating the response of aphids to incident light levels and frequencies. He then moved to take a postdoctoral position in the STFC-funded group of Sarah Bridle and has built a pipeline to analyse Sentinel 1 and 2 data. He has worked on blackgrass levels in the field and from space with Rob Freckleton. He is working on whitefly speciation with Bruce Grieve.

  • Bruce Grieve - ​University of Manchester

    Prof Bruce Grieve is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering & Technology,  the Institute of Agricultural Engineers and the Higher Education Academy, and holds the N8 Chair in Agri-Sensors & Electronics. Before joining the University of Manchester, as Director of the e-Agri Sensors Centre, he gained 18 years of industrial experience in the fields of on-line analysis and measurement R&D; including deployment of sensors and informatics systems within new integrated products for Sustainable Agriculture & Food. Since 2007 he has attracted over £5.3M of direct industrial, governmental and NGO funding which has been leveraged against a portfolio of £20.4M in collaborative multidisciplinary research projects. Previously Prof Grieve has been the industrial manager on a number of UK Research Council and DTI supported projects. He has been awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Fellowship to progress his e-Agri research at the University of Manchester and has held a number of funding board roles with UK Research Councils and the Innovate-UK (TSB), including being a nominated member of the BBSRC Agriculture & Food Security Strategy & Policy Panel and the STFC 21st Century Challenges Strategy Panel.

  • Pat Heslop-Harrison - University of Leicester

    My major research is on crop genetics and the exploitation of biodiversity to improve food quality and quantity, and increase the sustainability of temperate and tropical crops. The work includes identification of crop resistances to both biotic and abiotic stress, and analysis of the characters (genes) giving these properties, and extending into the food chain to investigate genetics related to food storage, transport (bruising, temperature etc), and post-harvest losses. Clearly, soil, drainage/irrigation, crop roots and microbiota in soil have been underemphasized in recent genetic studies but using EO and appropriate imaging, there are immense opportunities.

  • Pete Hurley - ​University of Sussex

    Since completing a PhD in Astrophysics, where he learnt the nuance of satellite-data analysis Dr. Philip Rooney has applied the big data methods that he learnt there to a variety of fields. In particular, he is a Wellcome Trust funded Postdoctoral Researcher, modelling the complexity of electionic health records to create predictive models of dementia risk. Dr.Philip Rooney is currently in the process of co-founding DataJavelin, a data science consultancy and Enterprise Unit at the University of Sussex, specialising in using EO data to help businesses to make better decisions.

  • Steve Keyworth - Environment Systems

    I am a founder and Director of Environment Systems, an environmental and agricultural data company. I have over twenty years experience in applying GIS and remote sensing technologies to environmental and agricultural applications. Working on projects across the UK and globally at a range of scales for mapping, monitoring and modelling. Interested in all things map related, I am a Chartered Geographer (GIS) and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.  I am the industry chair of the UK Digital Agri-Food and Horticulture Group.

  • Daniel Kindred - ADAS

    Dr Daniel Kindred has been a Crop Physiologist with ADAS since 2004, after growing up on an arable farm, studying agriculture at University of Nottingham and gained a PhD in Agronomy from Reading University. Daniel leads development of ADAS’ Agronōmics approach, which works intimately with farmers using modern technologies, field scale testing, meaningful measures, sound scientific concepts and robust statistics to develop the science of on-farm decision making. Daniel is seeking to integrate and exploit new crop, soil & weather sensing technologies in order to enable effective measurement of the metrics that really matter for crop performance on-farm, within Crop Intelligence Systems.

  • Guy Ziv - ​University of Leeds

    Dr Guy Ziv is an Associate Professor in Ecosystem Services at the School of Geography, University of Leeds. His research involve biophysical modelling, remote-sensing analysis and social-science empirical methods applied across range of geographic areas. Dr. Ziv is leading part of a recently started Global Food Security round 2 project on sustainable dairy landscapes, working with several other universities and industrial organizations (including Nestle) to understand the consequences of grasslands management on a range of ecosystem services. He also contribute to another NERC project studying the impacts of increasing sugarcane demand in Brazil on the natural environment. 

  • Yonghuai Liu - Aberystwyth ​University

    Dr Yonghuai Liu is a senior lecturer at Aberystwyth University since 2011. He obtained his first PhD degree in 1998 from Northwestern Polytechnical University, P.R. China and second PhD degree in 2001 from The University of Hull, United Kingdom. He is currently associate editor for a number of international journals and conference proceedings, including Pattern Recognition Letters, and won several international awards including the best associate editor award from 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. He has published three books and more than 170 papers in the top-ranked international conference proceedings and journals. His primary research interests lie in 3D computer vision, pattern recognition, image processing, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and intelligent systems. He is a senior member of IEEE and Fellow of Higher Education Academy of United Kingdom. 

  • Claire Pizzey - Diamond Light Source, STFC

    ​Claire Pizzey is Deputy Head of the Industrial Liaison group at the Diamond Light Source, taking specific responsibility for X-ray scattering experiments with or on behalf of industrial partners, often related to soft matter and formulations. She makes use of the advanced materials characterisation capabilities of Diamond to provide a multi-disciplinary approach to solving real-world problems. Prior to joining the Industrial Liaison Group in 2010, Claire was a senior beamline support scientist for the SAXS/WAXS beamline. A physical chemist by training, Claire was previously a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

  • Hugh Mortimer - STFC

    ​Dr Mortimer is a senior research scientist at the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, RAL Space, and Principle Investigator on the Newton Agritech Programme with China. The Newton Agritech programme is a joint £27M programme where Dr Mortimer coordinates the funding and activities between the UK and China in the area of space enabled data and technology for improved agriculture in China. In addition to being Principle Investigator on the STFC Newton Agritech Programme and Dr mortimer coordinates various research activities in the area of remote sensing of biotic and abiotic for plant health studies. Dr Mortimer has lead work in this area under projects funded by the UK research councils, Natural Environmental Research Councils (NERC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and for the European Union under a Framework 7 grant.. Prior to this Hugh worked at the National Physical Laboratory, helping to develop a Spectral Calibration Facility based on interferometric techniques, before completing his DPhil at Oxford University in 2008. During his time at Oxford, Hugh developed a Static imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (SHIFTS), which has led to the development of the microFTS instrument which was funded under a technology award that Hugh won in 2009. This research is motivated by the need to provide high accuracy spectroscopic instrumentation that are highly miniaturised and stable in hostile environments.

  • Seb Oliver - University of Sussex

    Seb Oliver is Director of the Data Intensive Science Centre in the South East Physics Network (DISCnet) expected to train ~60 PhD students across 5 Universities. He also Directs the Data Intensive Science Centre at University of Sussex (DISCUS) built to address real social and economic challenges. He is a Professor of Astrophysics and currently leads a €2.5M, EC funded, programme “The Herschel Extragalactic Legacy Project, HELP” and exploits a variety statistical analysis techniques to analyse large surveys of galaxies. He has applied data analysis techniques from astronomy to a number of areas, including dementia diagnosis, and has funding for an earth observation project to study pastoral land usage in Kenya to enhance disaster forcasting.

  • Simon Pearson - University of Lincoln

    Simon is Director of the Lincoln Institute of Agri-Food Technology. The Institute sits within the College of Science of the University of Lincoln and helps develop and run cross disciplinary research projects on behalf of the agri food sector. This includes a large focus on the use and deployment of agri robotic systems, including robotic crop harvesting systems, use of autonomous vehicles in agriculture, the application of actuators within agri- robotic systems. Prior to joining Lincoln, he was the CEO of a large UK farming company, worked for Marks and Spencer plc in a technical role and as a scientist at the University of Reading

  • George Petropoulos - University of Aberystwyth

    Dr George P. Petropoulos is a Reader in Remote Sensing & GIS at Aberystwyth University, UK and he also holds at present Marie Curie fellowship from the European Commission (2017-19). His research is focusing on the use of EO alone or synergistically with land surface process models in deriving key state variables of Earth's energy balance and water budget. He also has also strong interests in the development of EO & GIS geospatial analysis techniques in geohazards (mainly floods, wildfires and frost) and in quantifying land use/cover and of its changes using technologically advanced EO sensing systems and synergistic multi-sensor modelling techniques. He also contributes to the development of open source software tools in EO modelling and on the benchmarking of either EO operational algorithms/products or surface process models. // Dr. Petropoulos currently serves as a Council member of the Remote Sensing & Photogrammetric Society (RSPSoC). 

  • Edward Pope - The Met Office

    Edward joined the Met Office in 2011 with a research background in astrophysics and mathematical modelling. He currently leads the Climate Security team, analysing the interactions between the climate and human systems. Recent and on-going activities include investigating the climate risk to agriculture and the likelihood of multi-breadbasket failures, as well as the broader context of combined food, energy and water security. Prior to this, Edward’s work at the Met Office concentrated on assessing the impact of weather and climate across a range of sectors, including energy, water and transport.

  • Karen Rial-Lovera - Royal Agricultural ​University

    Karen is a Lecturer in Agricultural Engineering and Technology. Karen has a background in agricultural systems with an emphasis on soil tillage management having completed her PhD study on field trials in the UK. Karen has worked on soil management in response to climate change and short-term fertility-building crop influences on wheat performance in arable farming. Her experience also covers tropical cropping. She provided her expertise on a recent feasibility study in Sub-Saharan Africa, providing an agronomic plan to suit dryland agricultural systems. She therefore has on the ground experience of working in developing countries. Her current research focused on the adoption of robotic technologies in agriculture.

  • Philip Rooney - ​University of Sussex

    ​Philip Rooney is a Wellcome Trust funded Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Sussex. His work attempts to find early indicators of dementia in routinely collected GP healthcare records using probabilistic programming in a Bayesian framework. He is a cofounder of DataJavelin (https://www.datajavelin.com), a University of Sussex commercial enterprise providing statistical consultancy to industry. Philip completed his PhD in astrophysics in 2016 where he studied the X-Ray properties of galaxy clusters for the XMM Cluster Survey and the Dark Energy Survey

  • Lizzie Sagoo - ADAS

    Lizzie is a Principal Soil Scientist at ADAS with specialist knowledge of soil and nutrient management and diffuse pollution of air and water from agricultural systems. Lizzie joined ADAS in 2003 following a PhD at the University of Leeds. Lizzie’s research has focused on soil and nutrient management and she has extensive experience of leading research projects for Defra and AHDB. Lizzie has detailed knowledge of precision farming and EO technologies and their use in farming systems and has developed good working relationships with farmers, advisers and the precision farming industry. 

  • Paul Scholefield - Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

    My role at CEH requires expertise in the preparation, handling and statistical analysis of temporal and spatial data, in order to aid the provision of answers to a wide range of ecological questions. I have a broad overview of the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles through my work on biospheric trace gas emissions (Lancaster University), soil and crop nitrogen modelling (ADAS), and diffuse pollution research (Centre for Sustainable Water Management, Lancaster). I have over 10 years experience of using GIS and database management software, and a working knowledge of Matlab, FME and SAS. I have led the development of a major research platform in the Ribble and Wyre catchments, one of four CEH Source-to-Sea Observatories. I was actively involved in the Countryside Survey 2007 Integrated Assessment, led the development of the Defra habitat connectivity indicator for CEH and I am developing projects on ecosystem services for water quality and aquatic habitats. • I am actively involved in innovation projects developing new ground truthing products, national scale remotely sensed datasets, and carbon sensing technologies."

  • Stephen Serjeant - The Open University

    Stephen is Professor of Astronomy at the Open University. His research specialisms include star-forming galaxies, strong gravitational lensing and infrared astronomy. The Open University has a strong space instrumentation group to complement its astronomy, planetary sciences and physics, and many OU space instrumentation projects have found applications outside astronomy, such as submarine air quality monitoring, cancer detection, tuberculosis detection, and much else. Prof. Serjeant has written or co-written over 300 papers with over 10,000 citations and four books, and has also been a science consultant for several BBC television series, such as Light And Dark, Beginning and End, Bang Goes The Theory

  • Simon Sheridan - The Open ​University

    ​Simon is a researcher and lecturer at the Open University with over twenty years’ experience in the field of Planetary and Space exploration.  His research involves the application of analytical, laboratory simulations and the development of novel instrumentation to help understand the distribution of volatiles within the Solar System through the application of in-situ measurements carried on spacecraft platforms. 

    He has developed miniature mass spectrometer instruments for the European Space Agency Rosetta and Beagle 2 missions, and is currently working on mass spectrometers and novel volatile detection systems to allow the characterisation of water deposits at the Lunar poles as part of future ESA and NASA missions.

    He has developed patented valve technology for storing and controlling high pressure fluids with space and terrestrial applications and continues to develop miniature mass spectrometers and VOC sensor technologies for terrestrial markets.  He is commercialising these novel technologies through his two companies and is currently working on gas sensor technologies and integrated systems to extend the lifetime of stored food

  • Bjoern Soergel - ​University of Cambridge

    Bjoern has a background in physics and is currently in the final year of his PhD in astronomy at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on using correlations between the cosmic microwave background and large optical surveys as probes of cosmology and astrophysics, amongst others with data from the Dark Energy Survey, the South Pole Telescope, and the Planck satellite. Besides astronomy, his main interest lies in using data analysis for sustainability purposes, for example in remote sensing. He is currently developing a pipeline to monitor vegetation growth from high-resolution Planet Labs satellite imagery.

  • Toby Waine - Cranfield ​University

    Dr Toby Waine is a Lecturer in Applied Remote Sensing at Cranfield University, his particular areas of interest are the integration of multi-spectral satellite imagery of different spatial resolutions within the context of crop survey design and crop production estimates. Building on extensive experience of illicit crop monitoring of opium poppy and cannabis in Afghanistan, his recent research focuses on looking at the challenges of food security and commodity markets, and the application of precision farming with projects mapping and quantifying production of cocoa in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia, coffee in Vietnam, lettuce in Spain and tea in Kenya.

  • Tim Williams - Aberystwyth ​University

    Tim is currently on an internal University secondment to be business development manager for Farming Futures, 
    He has wide ranging experience of Agri-Food industry gained through living and working on farms whilst conducting project management with academic research partners SRUC, AFBI, EMR, Harper Adams University, NIAB and others alongside agri-food supply chain companies including food retailers Waitrose, Sainsbury’s etc with Dovecote Park, 3-Sisters, ABP, Wynnstay, Tulip etc. Projects include Defra SIP, Innovate UK Centres of Innovation etc.
    Tim is a generalist and coordinator for Knowledge Exchange activities including writing literature reviews and running workshops, conferences and collaborative applied research projects

  • Fangjie Zhao - Rothamsted

    Fang-Jie Zhao is a National “1000-Plan” Scholar of China and Professor of Environmental Biology at Nanjing Agricultural University. He obtained his PhD at Newcastle University, U.K., in 1992, and worked at Rothamsted Research, U.K., for over twenty years. He leads a research group focusing on the biogeochemistry of essential and toxic trace elements, uptake and detoxification of heavy metals in plants, bioremediation of contaminated soils, and biofortification of essential micronutrients in crops for improved nutrition. He is a 2017 Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate  Analytics).  

Transforming Food Supply Chains for a Sustainable Future:

  • Peter Alan - STFC

    ​Peter is an Honorary Scientist with STFC, following 25 years working at the Rutherford Appleton and Daresbury Laboratories in the fields of astronomy, space science and Earth observation. He has led many software development, and data processing and analysis projects, and he is familiar with the facilities that STFC can offer to all scientific disciplines. Peter has worked with many international space agencies (representing the UK Space Agency) to develop standards for space data and information transfer systems and coordinated operation of space systems. Peter hopes to bring knowledge of data analysis techniques from Earth observation to bear on issues relating to  agri-food.

  • Clothilde Baker - CampdenBri

    ​​Clothilde Baker manages the Ingredients and Primary Product Characterisation section at Campden BRI who provides applied science, technology and knowledge services for the food and drink industry. With many years experience in food analysis, Clothilde’s current work focuses on the quality and functionality of wheat, flour and other cereals where she provides expertise and advice to cereals industry stakeholders. She is a member on the AW4 committee of the British Standards Institute. Along with her involvement in cereal research projects, Clothilde manages the independent quality testing for the assessment of new wheat and oats varieties as part of the Recommended Lists programme.

  • John Bassett - Institute of Food Science and Technology

    ​John Bassett is the Policy and Scientific Development Director at the Institute of Food Science and Technology, where he is responsible for developing and communicating scientific policy on behalf of the institute. He also runs his own consultancy, John Bassett Consulting Ltd, working on risk assessment and risk management, in both industry and government roles. A veterinarian by training, he brings a “farm to fork” perspective on food safety challenges. He is currently a member of FSA’s expert advisory group supporting the ‘Regulating our Future’ activity.

  • Luciano Batista - ​University of Northampton

    Luciano Batista is Associate Professor of Operations Management in the Faculty of Business and Law, University of Northampton, where he contributes to research developed by the Centre for Sustainable Business Practices. He is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) UK, Member of the European Operations Management Association (EurOMA) and Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Supply Chain and Operations Resilience. His research interests focus mainly on the sustainability of operations and supply chains, new business models in the circular economy and the interface between the circular and the digital economy. He is guest editing special issue publications in these areas in two academic journals: Production Planning and Control and the Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management. Luciano has also organised the research track “Innovative Technologies as Enablers of Sustainable Operations”, which he will be chairing in the coming EurOMA 2018 conference.

  • Sonal Choudhary - ​University of Sheffield

    Sonal ​is a Lecturer in Sustainable Management at Sheffield University Management School (SUMS). She is also a member of Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) Research Centre and Centre for Environment Energy and Sustainability (CEES). Prior to joining SUMS, Sonal worked as a Marie Curie Research Fellow in the field of environmental sustainability (Project Sunshine and N-SINK) at the University of Sheffield. She has also worked on a number of other projects funded by DEFRA, European Commission (FP-7), Ministry of Environment and Forest, India, and IPCC. 

  • Dave Clarke - Central Laser Facility, STFC

    ​Dave joined the LSF in 2008 after a number of years at the Synchrotron Radiation Source, Daresbury Laboratory, where he was responsible for the construction and operation of the circular dichroism beamline CD12. His career has been focussed on the development of instrumentation and techniques for the study of biological systems using laser and synchrotron radiation. Dave’s research interests are in development of imaging and spectroscopy techniques and their application to biological questions along with cellular and structural biology, including cell signalling, protein folding, and biomaterials

  • Bob Doherty - ​University of York/ IKnowFood

    Bob Doherty is Professor of Marketing at The York Management School, University of York (since 2012) and principal investigator on a 4-year interdisciplinary research programme (£3.4m) on food resilience titled ‘IKnowFood’ (GFS funded). Bob is also the University of York lead and chair for N8 Agrifood, coupled with research theme leader for sustainable food in the York Environmental Sustainability Research Institute (YESI). Bob is also part of the N8 team recently awarded an ESRC grant to investigate ‘Sustainable Food Consumption in the Global South’.
    Bob specialises in research on the management aspects of fair trade and social enterprise organizations competing in the food industry. He is currently a trustee on the board of the Fairtrade Foundation. Prior to moving into academia Bob spent nearly five years as the first ever Head of Sales and Marketing at the Fairtrade pioneer Divine Chocolate Ltd (1999 to 2003).   
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  • Brian Ellison - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

    ​Professor Brian Ellison (CEng, FIET) is an internationally recognised leader in (sub)millimetre-wave and terahertz frequency heterodyne receivers used for astronomy and atmospheric remote sounding.  As a Senior STFC Fellow in the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Space Department, he directs the Millimetre-wave Technology and Chilbolton Radio Propagation Group, and a large team of research engineers engaged in developing new instrumentation for space missions and other applications.  He developed world leading receiver instrumentation at Caltech, USA, and led the UK technical contribution to the construction of the Atacama Large Millimetre and submillimetre Array (ALMA) – the world’s largest and most complex radio astronomy observatory.

  • Jack Farmer - LettUsGrow

    Jack Farmer is co-founder and director of LettUs Grow, a Bristol based start-up designing aeroponic technology for the next generation of vertical farms. A biologist by training, he is currently running the operational and biological research aspects of the company.
    LettUs Grow’s mission is to reduce the waste and carbon footprint of fresh produce, by empowering anyone to grow delicious food near its point of consumption. Having demonstrated significant yield benefits from their core technology the company is building Europe's first commercial aeroponic farm in Bristol, UK, during 2018. 
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  • Charles Ffoulkes - ADAS

    A Senior Consultant with nearly 5 years’ experience in the Sustainable Food & Farming team at ADAS, specialising in agri-food supply chains, sustainability and climate change issues. He has in-depth knowledge on the risks and opportunities associated with climate change and has worked on several projects which seek to improve sustainability, resilience and food security within supply chains. He has project managed and/or delivered into projects for a range of clients including large, multi-national retailers, Defra (e.g. Sustainable Intensification Research Platform), the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Natural England and Welsh Government; providing research, data assessment and value chain analysis.

  • Lucy Foster - DEFRA

    "Dr Lucy Foster began her Government career as a government scientist at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1998 working on food labelling and standards. She joined the Food Standards Agency in 2000.  She moved to the Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs in 2009 where she is currently Head of Science for food and farming and responsible for broad portfolio of strategic research, evidence and analysis underpinning agriculture and food policy. Gained throughout her Civil Service career, she has considerable experience across a wide range of food issues from both a science and policy perspective including food chain systems, food technology, microbiological foodborne disease, food hygiene, nutrition, food additives and food compositional and labelling standards. She is a food scientist by training and gained research experience at Unilever (Colworth) and the Institute of Food Research, Norwich. Her PhD specialised in food composition and analysis. She is also a fellow of the Institute of Food Science and technology.

  • David Scott - ​University of Nottingham

    I am a biophysicist who works on structural and molecular biology problems crossing a wide range of disciplines. I am currently seconded two days a week to the Research Complex at Harwell by the STFC where I am a Senior Molecular Biology and Neutron Fellow. I am also Research Chair for the Division of Food Sciences at Nottingham and an active participant in ongoing research programs both nationally and internationally.

  • Victoria Garcia-Sakai - STFC

    Dr. Victoria Garcia Sakai joined ISIS, the Pulsed Neutron and Muon Facility of the UK, as an instrument scientist for the neutron backscattering spectrometers IRIS and OSIRIS‚ in 2007. Prior to this she held a similar role at the NIST Center for Neutron Research, in the USA. She has concentrated her scientific career on understanding the behaviour of soft matter systems, throughout her PhD at Imperial, her postdoc at Pennsylvania State University and her time at neutron facilities. Her expertise lies in the using neutron techniques to study how the nanoscale dynamics of molecules in soft materials (many of which are relevant to food systems) relate to their macroscopic properties (such as viscosity, diffusion, preservation). 

  • Marcin Glowacz - ​University of Greenwich

    Dr Marcin Glowacz holds MSc (with distinction) in Ecology from Lancaster University, PhD in Plant Biochemistry from Harper Adams University, and has been employed as Postharvest Technologist by NRI/University of Greenwich since February 2013. Dr Glowacz has experience in plant physiology and biochemistry, and has good understanding of supply chains - majority of his work being conducted in collaboration with industrial partners. In 2016 Dr Glowacz received Newton Fund to conduct research in the South Africa on the use of natural volatiles within the fruit supply chain. This subsequently led to collaboration being established with the South African Avocado Growers’ Association.

  • Richard Green - Harper Adams

    Dr Richard Green is the National Centre for Precision Farming’s lead on research and business development. He has over 30 years of experience developing mechatronic systems for a range of commercial agricultural applications and is now leading a small team of researchers developing new innovative technology and Farming 4.0 systems. Much of his recent research has focused on developing global digitally connected 4.0 systems. Recently he helped establish and jointly chair the Digital AgriFood and Horticulture Special Interest Group and regularly gives presentation around the world on the impact the 4.0 revolution will have on the global economy. 

  • Jon Green - ​University of York

    ​My expertise is in understanding costs/benefits of biodiversity conservation, and accounting for impacts on biodiversity and natural capital. I completed my PhD – on systematic conservation planning – at the University of Cambridge before moving to the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton, where I ran a project investigating ecological impacts of converting land for aquaculture and salt harvesting. I then joined the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, to work with industry on natural capital issues. Since 2016, I have worked within the Sustainable Consumption and Production group at SEI York, to trace impacts of agricultural commodity consumption.

  • Graeme Heron - Newcastle ​University

    Graeme Heron is a Programme Director lecturing on logistics, operations and supply chain management MSc programmes at Newcastle University. With more than 25 years of industrial experience across a range of manufacturing sectors, Graeme’s funded research includes Horizon 2020 food security and supply chain provenance. Other current research includes Operator Recognition Schemes for road safety, value chain analysis tool development to promote agri-entrepreneurship and plural participative learning with hybridised management tools. His PhD considered the application of the Theory of Constraints in alternative models of localisation for food supply chains. Graeme is also a Director of Fareshare North East.

  • Tom Kirkham - STFC

    ​Tom Kirkham is a Computer Scientist at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Working at the STFC’s Hartree Centre his work is focused on how High Performance Computing can be applied to business in the domains of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and linked to emerging technologies such as Blockchain and the Internet of Things. His previous work has been focused on trust and security within distributed computing architectures. With respect to the food industry Tom is interested in the novel use of Blockchain technology to support food provenance and security.

  • Niamh Forde - University of Leeds

    ​Dr Forde is a University Academic Fellow in Reproduction and early development based in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Leeds. Her main research interest is understanding how the maternal uterine environment and embryo interact and communicate to support successful early pregnancy, how different stresses affect this communication and how male and female respond to these in a different manner. To address this question, she uses a combination of different in vivo and in vitro models from different including cattle, pigs and human. The main techniques she uses are molecular biological approaches with a specific focus on the Omics technologies including transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics.

  • Claire Lewis - Claire Lewis LTD

    Through professional experience from farm to fork inclusive of 6 years in agriculture supply and 3 years in food retail, Claire has real in-depth understanding of farming and the food supply chains absolutely end to end; the challenges, mis-matches and the potential of reconnecting the disconnected; food production with food consumption to deliver optimum productivity for all supply chain stakeholders. Claire’s specific area of expertise is the ability to enable this through data and information to inform real holistic strategic thinking with consideration to economic, environmental and social impacts to then invest and steer progress in a sustainable and productive way from farm to fork. 

  • Pascale Martin - Agronomex

    Pascale is a young entrepreneur who dedicates her energy to develop a new venture Agronomex. She comes from the financial industry where she had several positions in international investment institutions both in Paris and London. She grew up in Brittany (France), a strong agricultural area and has been living in London for the last 6 years. She holds a master degree in financial and statistics engineering from Université Paris Dauphine and a bachelor in mathematics from Université Rennes 1. 

  • Brian Matthews - Scientific Computing Department, STFC

    ​Brian is head of the Data Science and Technology Group, in the Scientific Computing Department of the STFC http://www.scd.stfc.ac.uk/, concentrating on the management, curation and analysis of scientific data, working within European and other programmes.  Brian is Project Manager of the European Open Science Cloud Pilot, a pathfinder project to define a common data infrastructure for European Research.  Brian has responsibility within the SCD to develop a R&D strategy, particularly in data science. Brian has over 30 years of experience of computer science, including: web technology, including the SKOS recommendation within the semantic web; grid and distributed systems, including security; scientific data management, working with the UK’s national analytic facilities.   Brian has a PhD in Computing Science from the University of Glasgow, held a part-time lectureship at Oxford Brookes University (2002-2015), and was deputy manager of the W3C Office for the UK and Ireland (2001-2010).  He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and the author of over 150 peer reviewed publications.

  • Robert Cordina - Mondelez

    ​​Robert works in Chocolate Technology Discovery at Mondelez, based in Bournville, having previously worked in the pharmaceutical and other food businesses in both analytical and product development roles.  A chemist and food technologist by training, he has in the past also lectured in food chemistry and food technology.  His main expertise is in food formulation and understanding complex food systems, using the functionality of the individual ingredients, as well as their interactions, to achieve the desired product

  • Taff Morgan - The Open University

    ​Geraint (Taff) Morgan works in the Faculty of STEM at The Open University and is the director of four start-up companies. He started his career designing, building and implementing mass spectrometer instruments for the Rosetta and Beagle2 space missions. He has harnessed this collective know-how to develop bespoke solutions to terrestrial challenges. Successes have included: the development of an award winning air monitor for all future UK submarines, a sector disruptive instrument for the world’s largest flavours and fragrance company, and a patented valve technology being evaluated by NASA. Other active areas include: bedbug detection, disease diagnosis and sports anti-doping.

  • Suzanne Neave - Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International

    Suzanne Neave has 18 years’ experience of working in developing countries including Ghana, Swaziland, Kenya, Zambia. Mozambique and Fiji. Her expertise includes entomology, integrated pest management, value chains and market access plus project development. Much of her experience has involved developing IPM approaches for the sustainable production of high value horticultural crops. This includes training farmers (smallholders) in organic practices and improved market linkages She has also worked in commercial value chains advising producers on IPM adaptation /organic production for EUREPGAP / BRC compliance . She developed and implemented a curriculum for pest monitoring, integrated pest management and organics at the National Zambian Training Trust and was a service provider for the Pesticide Initiative Programme (PIP - COLEACP) – conducting IPM training for export vegetables and pineapples. She has worked for CABI for 4 years. 

  • Luca Panzone - Newcastle University

    ​Luca is a Lecturer in Consumer Behaviour, and joined Newcastle in 2014. His research interests focus on the analysis of social problems related to agriculture, food and the environment. In particular, his interest is mainly focused on the sustainability impact of food consumption in retail environments (e.g. supermarkets). Methodologically, he estimates demand models from a quantitative, applied micro-econometric perspective. Apart from economics of consumer behavior, Luca maintains a strong interest in marketing theory, always focusing on the demand side. Previous place of employment include: the University of Manchester; University College London; University of Reading; National Institute for the Study and Cure of Cancer (Italy); Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra.

  • Rajeev Pattathil - Central Laser Facility, STFC

    Rajeev is the group leader of the Gemini facility. He is an associate member of the John Adams Institute, University of Oxford and a visiting faculty member at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He has been on organising/program committees of international conferences (ICUIL, LPAW etc.) and is currently on the steering committee of the Horizon2020 project, EuPRAXIA, which designs a 5GeV plasma-based accelerator. Rajeev is also a member of the UK Plasma Acceleration Steering Group and he currently coordinates CLF’s India activities under the Newton program.  He has co-authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications in various fields, including several high impact ones such as Nature-group journals and Physical Review Letters. Rajeev’s research interests are in intense laser-matter interactions, laser acceleration of electrons and nano-plasmonics,

  • Malcolm Povey - University of Leeds

    Malcolm is a Physicist and Food Scientist who has worked with the Food Industry since 1976. In addition to being a prolific innovator of ultrasound instrumentation and processing equipment, he is co-Director of the Leeds-Jiangsu Food Sensing Laboratory which aims to deliver low cost, mass produced sensors for monitoring the entire food chain from soil to sewage. He is consultant to Ambrosus Technologies sarl and is collaborating on a Block Chain solution to the integration and validation of data in food chains. His work has been cited 6870 times and his h-index is 40.
    ​

  • Ram Ramanathan - University of Bedfordshire

    Professor Ram Ramanathan is the Director of Business and Management Research Institute in the University of Bedfordshire, UK. In the past, he has worked and taught in a number of countries, including the UK, Finland, the Netherlands, Oman and India. His research interests include Big Data, sensors, supply chains, food industry, operations management, environmental sustainability, economic and policy analysis of development issues. 

  • Christian Reynolds - University of Sheffield

    Christian is a Knowledge Exchange Research Fellow (N8 AgriFood project) at the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield. Christian’s research examines the economic and environmental impacts of food consumption; with focus upon food waste, sustainable diets, and the political power of food in international relations. In 2017/18 Christian is on secondment at WRAP with a focus on healthy sustainable eating and food waste

  • Sarah Rogers - ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, STFC

    Sarah has been the ISIS-STFC SANS Team Leader since September 2015 and the Instrument Responsible for Sans2d beamline since May 2010.  She has been a facilities scientist on small-angle beamlines since August 2006, firstly as a junior beamline scientist on I22 at Diamond Light Source (DLS) Ltd and later joining ISIS as a member of the SANS team in February 2008.  Before arriving at Diamond she was at the University of Bristol in the School of Chemistry, where she was undertaking an EPSRC funded PDRA position in the lab of Professor Julian Eastoe, studying the formation of gold nanoparticles in supercritical carbon dioxide.  Prior to this she completed her PhD in the same lab in 2005. In addition to her duties as an instrument scientist, Sarah has an active research program in the areas of surfactant chemistry, ferrofluids, nanoparticle synthesis, ionic-liquids and supercritical carbon dioxide and is currently a co-investigator on several grants in these areas.  

  • Hilary Rogers - ​University of Cardiff

    Lecturer/Reader at Cardiff University since 1995, I have >20 yrs experience in research on post-harvest biology, with a specific interest in finding markers for post-harvest quality through changes in gene expression and profiles of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). I have >70 publications in plant and fungal gene expression. These include studies of transcriptomics relating to vase quality in flowers, effects of abiotic stress pre- and post-harvest, environmental sequencing of fungal populations and understanding correlations between changes in VOCs and quality in fresh cut produce. I have had funding from the EU, NERC, BBSRC, DEFRA and the Leverhulme Trust

  • Ximena Schmidt - ​University of Manchester

    Ximena is currently a research associate within the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, University of Manchester. Since 2015, Ximena has worked within the Centre for Sustainable Energy Use in the Food Supply Chain (CSEF), where she specializes in the sustainability of different food products, their supply chains, circular economy and alternative fuels. Prior to this, Ximena achieved first-class honors at Universidad de Santiago de Chile in Chemical Engineering (2007), worked as an engineering consultant before moving to Manchester to start her PhD in the Sustainable Industrial System group (SIS) in 2011. Her PhD research focused on using life cycle assessment methodologies to assess environmental, economic and social sustainability of the convenience food sector.

  • Bryan Shaughnessy - STFC

    Bryan Shaughnessy is Head of the Thermal Engineering Group at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory “RAL Space” department. The group provides thermal engineering services for space hardware, undertakes related research and has a Multilayer Insulation manufacturing facility.

    Bryan holds an MSc and PhD from Cranfield University. He has extensive experience of thermal systems engineering for space applications having held lead roles on a variety of projects such as the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the ESA/NASA James Webb Space Telescope and SPICE, one of the instruments aboard the ESA Solar Orbiter spacecraft. 

  • Mark Swainson - University of Lincoln

    Mark Swainson - Deputy Head and Lead for Research and Higher Education at the UK National Centre for Food Manufacturing (NCFM) – University of Lincoln.
    Mark’s industrial food manufacturing sector expertise developed working in senior Technical and Operations in the high-risk chilled and frozen food industry. Experienced and well qualified in industrial food technology and food process & packaging systems, Mark is listed on the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) Food Safety Experts Database.
    Since joining the University Mark has developed the NCFM approach to Food Industry research, routinely working on projects which address specific sector challenges. Mark also leads the Higher Education provision, including undergraduate and post-graduate provision in Food Science & Technology and Food Operations Management.

  • John Vandore - STFC

    John has an Engineering Degree and MBA, initially in the automotive industry, in central [product] planning then front line sales of engineered products from transmissions for buses, boats, trains & battle tanks, then fire engines. Summarily fired, he went on to run companies in flow control [eg making ball valves in Birmingham - including Cryogenic Valves] progressing into corporate management, acquiring & running companies in England and North America. Back in England, he is particularly associated with Cryogenics - at RAL, STFC and beyond - with an interest in the Cold Chain and a Low Carbon Sustainable Future. 

  • Kerry Whiteside - Bradgate Bakery

    I have worked in product and process development of chilled  foods for 20 years, supplying the major retailers across many categories. Over the last 3 years, drawing uponmy experience in the end to end food supply chain,  my role has focussed on the longer term development of science and technology in the food industry. In achieving this, I have built relationships with research councils and organisations, while demonstrating the benefits to and winning the commitment of our business.

  • Wantao Yu - ​University of Roehampton

    I am Professor of Supply Chain Management at University of Roehampton. Previously I worked at University of Kent, University of East Anglia, and Buckinghamshire New University. My current research interests include big data analytics for operations and supply chain management, sustainability in operations and supply chains, green supply chain management, and retail operations and logistics. I have successfully completed a number of research projects in the areas of big data-driven supply chain management, agri-food supply chains, and environmental sustainability. My research work has been published in peer-reviewed journals in the field of operations and supply chain management.

  • Les Levidow - The Open University

    Les Levidow is a Senior Research Fellow at the Open University, UK, where he has been studying agri-food-environmental issues since the late 1980s.  By applying social science perspectives, he has studied linkages between agri-food innovation and wider institutional change, especially as regards issues of sustainability, accountability and traceability.   He has also studied agroecological methods, whereby farmers gain and use knowledge for applying ecological principles (such as nutrient recycling); likewise short food-supply systems giving producers more of the value that they add to food and the wider environment.  For all these issues he has studied how publics  evaluate agri-food innovations, as well as how public responses influence food-chain innovation by stimulating some trajectories while deterring others​