NERC Executive Board biographies
NERC is committed to being open and transparent, and so here we give some background to members of the NERC Executive Board (NEB).
Professor Mark Bailey
Director, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH)
Professor Mark Bailey is acting Director of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) for a two-year period with effect from March 2011, and Director of CEH's Biodiversity Programme.
After graduating with a degree in microbiology and a PhD in insect virology, Mark spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow studying bacterial pathogenicity before moving to Oxford to establish the Molecular Microbial Ecology Group. In 2002, he was appointed Director of CEH's Oxford site, the former NERC Institute of Virology & Environmental Microbiology, before becoming Science Director for the CEH Biodiversity Programme in 2003.
Mark is an Inaugural Fellow of the Society of Biology and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He is Visiting Professor, School of Plant & Animal Sciences, at the University of Sheffield; Honorary Professor, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University; and Visiting Professor, Department of Agricultural & Engineering Sciences, Newcastle.
He is a member of the Board of Trustees for the National Biodiversity Network and Rothamsted Research, and Chair of the Steering Committee for the Environmental Change Network.
Mr Paul Fox
NERC Director, Finance & Operations
Paul became the NERC Director, Finance & Operations in 2010. He has held several senior public sector finance roles, being previously Divisional Director - Finance at Bath & NE Somerset Council, Director of Finance at Lewisham College, and Assistant Director of Education (Resources) at Hertfordshire County Council.
Paul has also worked as a consultant and interim manager in the local government and further education sectors and was Senior Director Subnational Ratings at Fitch, managing credit ratings for subnational government entities outside the UK. Paul has an MA in Modern History & Economics from Balliol College, Oxford and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy.
Professor Ed Hill
Director, National Oceanography Centre (NOC)
Ed took up his appointment as Director of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton on 1 May 2005. Ed is a Physical Oceanographer and a graduate of the University of Sheffield (BSc Applied Mathematics, 1981) and University of Wales, Bangor (MSc, 1983 PhD, 1987). He held academic positions at the University of Wales, Bangor and was Director of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory from 1999-2005. He has been Director of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and Professor of Oceanography at the University of Southampton since 2005.
Ed's research interests are in circulation and mixing processes in shallow coastal seas with particular interests in density-driven circulations including cascading and frontal jets. Professor Hill has served on numerous committees including as the first chair of the Governing Board of the National Centre for Ocean Forecasting, Vice Chair of the European Science Foundation's Marine Board, and a member of NERC's Science & Innovation Strategy Board.
Professor John Ludden
Executive Director British Geological Survey
John is the Executive Director of the British Geological Survey, which is the principal supplier of national geological capability for NERC and geoscience information for decision making for government, commerce and the public. He oversees all of the activities in the UK and internationally of approximately 750 people at three principal BGS sites in Keyworth near Nottingham, in Edinburgh, and Wallingford.
Before taking the post at the BGS, he was Director of the Earth Sciences Division at the CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research. He served as Director of Research for the CNRS in Nancy, France, where he also taught at the French National School of Geology (ENSG-Nancy). Prior to this, Professor Ludden worked at the University of Montreal and with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the USA.
John holds a doctorate in igneous petrology from the University of Manchester, UK. Among his responsibilities, Professor Ludden serves on the Board of IODP Management International and the advisory council of the EC Zero Emissions Panel (ZEP). He is appointed as a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford and University of Leicester, UK and is a Research Director with the CNRS, France.
Professor Stephen Mobbs
Director, National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS)
Stephen is director of National Centre for Atmospheric Science, one of the NERC's collaborative centres. He is based at the University of Leeds. Stephen is a physicist by training and obtained his PhD from the University of Leeds, working in collaboration with the Met Office. After a period as a lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Leeds, Professor Mobbs worked in industry as a research scientist at Schlumberger, developing flow measurement techniques for oil well logging.
On returning to the University of Leeds in 1995 he developed the new Environment Centre to become by 2004 the School of Earth & Environment, one of the UK's largest earth and environmental science academic departments. During this time he also founded the Institute for Climate & Atmospheric Science in Leeds. Professor Mobbs remains active in research in the fields of mesoscale and boundary layer meteorology.
Dr Philip Newton
NERC Director, Science Delivery
Phil joined NERC in 1999 as marine sciences manager, then moving to Deputy Director of Science & Innovation, through to his current role as NERC's Director for Science Delivery. Phil has a degree in chemistry (Bristol) and a PhD in environmental chemistry and oceanography(UEA).
Formerly he was a NERC funded & Royal Society funded marine biogeochemist, and subsequently headed a marine research group within the French Atomic Energy Agency, focused on biogeochemical cycling in the sub-tropical Atlantic Ocean, Southern Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Prior to joining NERC, he spent five years in the private sector as an editor at Nature, with responsibility for the journal's environmental science content.
Professor Patricia Nuttall, OBE
Director, National Capability Integration
Pat was Director of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology until 1 March 2011 when she became the NERC Director of National Capability Integration. Her office is at NERC headquarters in Swindon.
After graduating in microbiology at Bristol University, Pat undertook a PhD in virology at the Institute of Animal Health, Compton. Her first post-doc position was in the Zoology Department of Oxford University, after which she joined NERC working at CEH Oxford. Pat's current research interests are in viruses transmitted by ticks, and how tick saliva promotes virus transmission.
She is Professor of Virology of the University of Oxford and a Supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford and was awarded the Ivanovsky Medal for Virology in 1996 by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the OBE in 2000 for services to environmental sciences. Her research resulted in the first NERC spin out company, Evolutec Ltd, which is now listed on the Alternative Investment Market (ATM).
Alan O'Neill
Director, National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO)
Alan O'Neill is the Director of the Natural Environment Research Council's new National Centre for Earth Observation.
He began his research career at The Met Office, and subsequently joined the University of Reading as Director of the UK University Global Atmospheric Modelling Programme, a post he held concurrently with a Professorship in the Department of Meteorology.
He was the founding director of the Data Assimilation Research Centre, an institution which synthesises a wide variety of satellite data to obtain an accurate global picture of the climate system.
He has served as a Vice-President of The Royal Meteorological Society, and is currently a member of the European Space Agency's Scientific Advisory Committee.
Professor Nick Owens
Director, British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
Nick is a marine biologist by training having studied at the Liverpool University Marine Biological Station, Port Erin, Isle of Man for his first degree and PhD studies at the University of Dundee, under the supervision of Prof. W.D.P. Stewart FRS, who later became Government Chief Scientist.
Nick was then employed at the then relatively newly created Institute for Marine Environmental Research (IMER) in Plymouth. IMER was re-named the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) in 1988 where he remained until 1993. In September 1993 Nick took the position of Professor of Marine Sciences at the University of Newcastle and head of Department (1994-1999) until 2000. During this time Nick was a member of many NERC Committees.
In 2000 Nick became Director of PML - then a component of NERC's Centre for Coastal & Marine Sciences (CCMS). CCMS was very soon disbanded and Nick, with a valiant and dedicated senior team, took PML out of NERC ownership to create an independent organisation within the NERC family. A fully commercial trading subsidiary was also created in order to maximise diversity of funding and provide a vehicle for exploitation and spin-out of research. Nick became Director of BAS in September 2007.
Nick's research interests as a biological oceanographer are primarily in the field of biogeochemical cycling, especially the nitrogen cycle and the production and consumption of biogases. He has spent over three years of his career at sea on a variety of research ships, large and small, in almost all of the world's oceans.
Non-Executive Directors:
Dr Andrew Colquhoun
Andrew was the Director-General of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) until 2006. From 1990-98 he was the Secretary and Chief Executive of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW). His first post at the ICAEW was as Director of Public Affairs, which he began in 1983, moving on to become Director of Education & Training. This period of his career was preceded by 10 years in public service, most of them in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, which he entered in 1974 after completing a PhD at Glasgow University in the hormonal control of plant ageing.
NERC is of particular interest to Andrew because his work in the RHS has given him significant exposure to issues relating to sustainable development and other environmental issues.
Dr Michael Brooker
Michael retired as Chief Executive of Glas Cymru, owner of Welsh Water, in 2005, following a career in the water industry in Wales. During his career he was Chief Scientist and subsequently Divisional Operations Director of Welsh Water before becoming the firm's Managing Director in 1996. His early career was as a research scientist. Following his PhD at the University of Wales he undertook post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge and subsequently led a multidisciplinary team (University of Wales) assessing the potential impact of flow regime change on the general ecology of the River Wye. He has published over 40 scientific papers between 1972-1984. He is currently non-executive Commissioner of the Water Industry Commission for Scotland.
NERC is of particular interest to Michael because he is interested in the environment, particularly the relevance of environmental research to economic tensions that impact in real life.