Please find below information about the invited speakers who have agreed to present at the Conference.
Professor Margaret Alston
Professor And Centre Director
Charles Sturt University
AUSTRALIA
BIOGRAPHY
Margaret Alston is Professor of Social Work and Human Services,
and Director of the Centre for Rural Social Research at Charles
Sturt University. She has published widely in the field of
rural social issues and is a leading commentator on rural
and regional community issues. In 2003 she was invited to
the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)
under the visiting expert program to undertake a review of
gender mainstreaming policy in the UN environment. Her latest
book on rural social issues is Breaking through the Grass
Ceiling: Women, Power and Leadership in Rural Organisations
published in Europe.
Professor Richard Bawden
Michigan State University
USA
BIOGRAPHY
Richard Bawden - Although his PhD was in Animal Parasitology
Richard has spent the vast majority of his career working
in education for agriculture and rural development from a
systems perspective. Richard was Dean of Agriculture and Rural
Development at Hawkesbury Agricultural College/University
of Western Sydney from 1978-1993, Professor of Systemic Development
from 1989, and Director of the Centre for Systemic Development
from 1995 to 1999. He has been a visiting distinguished university
professor at Michigan State University since then. He has
also been a visiting professor at the Open University in England,
the University of Natal in South Africa, and Rutgers and Cornell
Universities in the USA.
Mr Shaun Coffey
Chief
CSIRO Livestock Industries
AUSTRALIA
BIOGRAPHY
Shaun Coffey is Chief of CSIRO Livestock Industries.
He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne where his
research interests were in plant selection. After an early
career in tertiary education, Shaun worked for 5 years as
CEO of the Cattleman's Union of Australia, a major grower
organisation. From 1990 to 1995 he worked in the Queensland
Department of Primary Industries as Regional Director and
then as Director of Research and Extension. In 1995 he joined
CSIRO and was appointed Chief in 2000. Shaun has been active
in a wide range of professional interests. He has edited a
rural newspaper, was a member of the executive of the Australian
Council of Agricultural Journalists for several years (Vice
President from 1997 to 2002) and was awarded the Silver Medal
of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists
in 2000 in recognition of his services to rural journalism.
Shaun is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management
and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. In 2004
his contribution to agricultural science and research was
recognised in his election to Fellowship of the Australian
Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He is an
adjunct Professor in the University of Queensland.
Professor Thomas DeGregori
Professor Of Economics
University Of Houston
USA
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Thomas R. DeGregori, Professor of Economics, University
of Houston and Board of Directors of the American Council
on Science and Health has extensive overseas experience as
a development economist including work as a policy advisor
to donor organizations and developing countries. He is widely
published - his most recent books include: Origins of the
Organic Agriculture Debate; The Environment, Our Natural Resources,
and Modern Technology and Agriculture and Modern Technology:
A Defense (Blackwell Publisher for all three) and Bountiful
Harvest: Technology, Food Safety, And The Environment (Cato
Institute). Author's homepage is http:www.uh.edu/~trdegreg
and email address is trdegreg@uh.edu.
Dr Chris Delgado
Director
International Food Policy Research Institute
USA
BIOGRAPHY
Christopher Delgado, an International Food Policy Research
Institute (IFPRI) staff member since 1979, is Director of
the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)- IFPRI
Joint Program on Livestock Market Opportunities, which includes
ILRI's Markets Theme with projects in Asia, Africa and Latin
America. Author or editor of five books and over one hundred
articles in professional journals, he has worked at the Center
for Development Studies and Education in Chad, the University
of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, the University of Michigan,
the University of Puerto Rico, and the Johns Hopkins School
of Advanced International Studies. A U.S. citizen, Delgado
received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and
his undergraduate degree in economics and philosophy from
Tufts University.
Dr Ina Dobrinski
Assoc Professor of Large Animal Reproduction
University of Pennsylvania
USA
BIOGRAPHY
Ina Dobrinski holds a veterinary degree from the School of
Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, Germany, an MVSc degree from
the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, a PhD in Reproduction
from Cornell University, NY, and is board certified by the
American College of Theriogenologists. She currently is an
Associate Professor of Large Animal Reproduction and the Director
of the Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research
at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine.
Research in her laboratory is focused on male germ cell biology
in domestic animals and non-human primates. One aspect of
this work is the exploration of germ line stem cell biology
to develop a new approach to transgenesis in domestic animals
through the manipulation of the male germ line.
Professor Julie Fitzpatrick
Scientific Director and Chief Executive
Moredun Research Institute
SCOTLAND
BIOGRAPHY
Julie Fitzpatrick is the Chief Executive and Scientific Director
of the Moredun Group. Professor Fitzpatrick's research interests
focus on farm animal health and disease, animal welfare and
food safety and quality. She was previously Chair in Farm
Animal Medicine at the University of Glasgow. Professor Fitzpatrick
is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS)
Research Committee the Advisory Committee on Animal Feedstuffs
and the BBSRC Strategy Group. She is also Chairman of the
BVA's Veterinary Policy Group (VPG). In 2003 she was awarded
the G Norman Hall Medal for research into animal diseases
by the RCVS Trust.
Ms Louise Fresco
Assistant Director-General - Agriculture Department
Food And Agriculture Organization
ITALY
BIOGRAPHY
From February 2000 to present day, Louise has been the Assistant
Director-General of FAO (Agriculture Department) and a Corresponding
Member of the Spanish Academy of Engineering Sciences, Madrid
(since January 2000). She was a Nominated Foreign Member of
the Hollandsche Maatschappij van Wetenschappen at Haarlem
(Dutch Academy of Sciences) in 2001. From 1997 to January
2000 Louise was Director of the Research, Extension and Training
Division, which includes Natural Resources, GIS and Remote
Sensing, of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United
Nations, with special responsibility for Climate Change. She
holds a personal Chair at the Agricultural University Wageningen
(WAU) in International Agriculture. From 1991 to 1997 Louise
was a Full Professor of Plant production systems with special
reference to the (sub)tropics and Chair of the Department
of Agronomy from 1993 to 1995. From 1986 to 1991 Louise was
the Senior Lecturer at the (then) Department of Tropical Crop
Science and from 1996-1997 she was Chair of the National Advisory
Council for Research on Nature and Environment (RMNO), responsible
to the Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment,
the Minister of Economic Affairs, the Minister of Agriculture,
Nature Management and Fisheries, the Minister of Transport
and Public Works and the Minister of Education, Culture and
Science. Louise held previous positions at FAO as field officer
and project manager in PNG and in Zaire. She completed her
PhD thesis at WAU in 1986 (cum laude). She was in charge of
developing a new interdisciplinary research field as well
as a new set of courses on tropical land use and was one of
the founding members of the newly created Graduate School
of Production Ecology at WAU. She was Chairman and Head of
the programme committee of the 75th Anniversary Congress of
the Agricultural University, Instrumental in promoting the
use of computer supported education. Actively involved in
integrated land use planning research in Costa Rica and the
Sahel, overall coordinator of the tropical research programmes
of the Agricultural University.
Professor Margaret Gill
Chief Executive & Director Of Research
Macaulay Institute
UNITED KINGDOM
BIOGRAPHY
Margaret Gill has a BSc in Agricultural Science from Edinburgh
University and a PhD from Massey University, New Zealand.
She worked as a researcher in ruminant nutrition at the Grassland
Research Institute in the UK from 1976 to 1989, when she moved
jobs to work in the research arm of the UK Government's Overseas
Development Administration, the Natural Resources Institute
(NRI), ending up as Research Director. NRI was privatised
in 1996, when she became Chief Executive of a research and
consultancy services company spun out of that privatisation.
Since 2000, she has been Chief Executive and Director of Research
at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen.
Professor Iain Gordon
Group Leader - Rangelands & Savannas Program
CSIRO - Davies Laboratory
AUSTRALIA
BIOGRAPHY
Professor Iain James Gordon is a Group Leader in CSIRO's Rangelands
& Savannas Program within the Sustainable Ecosystems Division,
based in Townsville. The aim of his research is to quantify
relationships between habitats and the foraging behaviour
of domestic and wild herbivores in heterogeneous ecosystems,
such rangelands across the globe. Iain does this through the
development and testing of herbivore foraging theory in which
he studies the effects of the distribution of vegetation,
its physical and chemical composition, variation in microclimate
and the social interactions of animals on foraging behaviour.
Iain’s greatest enthusiasm is developing integrated,
livestock production systems which addresses environmental,
social and economic goals in rangelands and savannas.
Professor Penny Johnes
Professor of Freshwater Science
University of Reading
UNITED KINGDOM
BIOGRAPHY
Professor Penny Johnes. Penny has spent the past 19 years
researching nutrient hydrochemistry dynamics and the rates
of nutrient export from agriculture to water. She gained her
BSc in Environmental Science at the University of Plymouth
(1986), and her D.Phil from the University of Oxford (1990)
for her research on the processes controlling the transport
and transformation of N species and P fractions in river basins.
At the University of Liverpool (1991-1993) she developed a
novel modelling approach to predict the rates and origins
of diffuse N and P export from land to water. She joined the
University of Reading in 1993, co-founding the Aquatic Environments
Research Centre with Professor Paul Whitehead in 1995. Presently
foci for her work include nutrient hydrochemistry dynamics
of riparian wetlands; the role of sediments in the transport
and transformation of nutrient species within river reaches;
and the development of screening tools to identify diffuse
pollution sources and target management strategies in large
river basins.
Dr Steven Kappes
Deputy Administrator
United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research
Service
USA
Biography
Steven Kappes is the USDA-ARS Deputy Administrator for Animal
Production and Protection. He has spent most of his career
working at the USDA-ARS Meat Animal Research Center (MARC)
at Clay Center, Nebraska. He initially was a research scientist
developing the bovine genetic linkage map and identifying
chromosomal regions affecting reproduction and meat quality
traits and more recently was the Director of MARC. In January
2005 he became the Deputy Administrator for the ARS animal
program. Steven is also a co-chair on the international Bovine
Genome Sequencing Project.
Dr Glenn Marion
Senior Bio-Mathematician
Biomathematics And Statistics Scotland
UNITED KINGDOM
BIOGRAPHY
Glenn Marion leads the Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland
(BioSS) research theme in Complex Systems and Risk. He is
a member of the project coordination committee for the European
Union FP6 Integrated ALARM Project (Assessing LARge scale
environmental risks using tested Methods: www.alarmproject.net/).
And as part of the NANIA research cluster (www.ph.ed.ac.uk/nania/)
recently won funding under the UK's EPSRC Novel Computation
Initiative to investigate generic computational techniques
to study and understand complex dynamic systems. His research
focuses on both mathematical and statistical methodology and
on the development of stochastic models for epidemiology and
agricultural systems in close collaboration with biological
scientists.
Professor Paul-Pierre Pastoret
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
UNITED KINGDOM
BIOGRAPHY
Professor Paul-Pierre Pastoret graduated as Doctor in Veterinary
Medicine from the University of Liège (Cureghem) in
1970. After several stages in rural practice and a PhD thesis
in veterinary virology and immunology on the latency of bovine
herpesvirus 1, a virus responsible for Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis
(IBR), defended in the same university, he continued post-doctoral
studies at the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon) Canada.
Back to Belgium in 1979, he became Professor of Virology-Immunology
and viral infectious diseases at the University of Liège.
Professor Paul-Pierre Pastoret has been deeply involved in
the development of a recombinant vaccinia-rabies vectored
vaccine used for the oral vaccination of wildlife in Europe
and in the United States. From 1995 to 2002 he was a member
of the Committee for Veterinary Medicinal Products (CVMP)
of the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products
(EMEA) based in London, where he chaired the Immunological
Working Party (IWP) for 6 years; he is also one of the co-founders
and the first Chairman of the European Society for Veterinary
Virology (ESVV) and is presently an honorary member of this
society. He organised the first congress of the ESVV at the
University of Liège. Professor Pastoret is a member
of the Steering Committee for Biologicals at the European
Directorate for the Quality of Medicine (EDQM) based in Strasbourg
(France), a Board Member of the International Livestock Research
Institute based at Nairobi (Kenya) and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)
and of the Scientific Committee of the Institute for Agricultural
Research (INRA) in France. Professor Pastoret is author or
co-author of more than 750 papers in refereed journals and
the first editor of several textbooks such as the Handbook
of Vertebrate Immunology (Academic Press, 1998) and Veterinary
Vaccinology (Elsevier, 1997). At the beginning of September
2002 he moved to the United Kingdom to become the Director
of the Institute for Animal Health (IAH) based at Compton,
Pirbright and Edinburgh (NPU).
Mr Paul Thompson
W.K. Kellogg Professor Of Agricultural, Food And Community
Ethics
Michigan State University
USA
BIOGRAPHY
Paul B. Thompson holds the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural,
Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University and
is Professor in the Departments of Philosophy, Agricultural
Economics and Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource
Studies. He is author or editor of seven books including The
Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics
(1995), and Food Biotechnology in Ethical Perspective
(1997). He has published widely on risk and ethical issues
associated with all aspects of agriculture and food systems,
including animal welfare, food safety and the meaning of the
family farm. Dr. Thompson received his Ph. D. in philosophy
from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1980.
Dr Laurence Tiley
Lecturer in Molecular Virology
University of Cambridge
UNITED KINGDOM
BIOGRAPHY
Laurence Tiley is a Graduate in Bacteriology and Virology
from Manchester University 1985. He did his Ph.D at the IAH
Pirbright studying the structure of the FMDV 5' non-coding
region. Laurence moved to North Carolina as a post-doc at
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University, studying
lentiviral RNA-protein interactions. He then worked for 4
years at Bristol Myers Squibb Co, first at Princeton NJ and
later Wallingford CT where he first became interested in the
interaction of the influenza virus RNA polymerase and viral
template RNAs. Laurence returned to the UK in 1995 where he
is currently lecturer in Molecular Virology at the University
of Cambridge working on control of influenza virus replication.
Professor Johan Van Arendonk
Professor & Chair of Animal Breeding and Genetics
Group
Wageningen University
THE NETHERLANDS
BIOGRAPHY
Prof. dr. ir. J.A.M. van Arendonk leads the Animal Breeding
and Genetics group of the Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences
(graduate school of Wageningen University). This group is
actively involved in training (BSc, MSc and PhD) and research.
The research programme is focussed on identifying the biological
role of genetic factors in the functioning of farm animals
and the design of optimum schemes for long-term selection.
To achieve this, the group combines expertise in the fields
of quantitative genetics, molecular genetics and biology.
The expertise of J.A.M. van Arendonk lies in the fields of
Animal Breeding and Quantitative Genetics. He is actively
involved in research related to the design of breeding programmes
and the role of genetics in improving food quality. His present
areas of research are: the use of molecular genetic information
for the detection and utilization of genes affecting traits
in farm animals, quantitative genetic analysis of data and
optimization of breeding programmes. For further information:
www.zod.wau.nl/abg
Mr Garry Waghorn
Senior Research Scientist
Dexcel Limited
NEW ZEALAND
BIOGRAPHY
Garry Waghorn is a senior research scientist specialising
in ruminant nutrition and working for Dexcel Ltd., Hamilton,
New Zealand. His current research interests include greenhouse
gas (principally methane) mitigation as well as constraints
and opportunities to improve the performance of animals fed
forage diets. Previous research has included simulation modelling,
bloat, digestive physiology as well as fibre and protein digestion
kinetics. The effects of condensed tannins in temperate forages
on nutrition, gastro-intestinal parasitism and recently methanogenesis
have been a major part of his research over the past 20 years.
Science should be fun!
Dr David Wells
Scientist
AgResearch Ruakura
NEW ZEALAND
BIOGRAPHY
Dr Wells completed his PhD on the isolation of embryonic stem
cells in 1991 at the Roslin Institute, Scotland. He currently
leads AgResearch’s animal cloning programme based at
the Ruakura Research Centre in Hamilton, New Zealand. His
group were the second in the world to clone mammals from differentiated
cultured cells in 1996 and have extensive experience in cloning
sheep and cattle. Notably, they extended the technology into
animal conservation by cloning the last surviving cow of the
Enderby Island cattle breed in 1998. The focus of the group
is to better understand the reprogramming of differentiated
nuclei to improve cloning efficiencies leading to greater
utility and acceptability of the technology for agriculture
and medicine. AgResearch is involved in commercial opportunities
to clone progeny-tested sires for breeding and using cloning
technology to produce genetically modified dairy cattle producing
valuable proteins in their milk.
Dr Andrew West
Chief Executive
AgResearch
NEW ZEALAND
BIOGRAPHY
Dr Andrew West is Chief Executive of AgResearch, New Zealand’s
largest Crown Research Institute. He joined the organisation
in May 2004.
He was previously Chair of the Tertiary Education Commission.
Before implementing New Zealand’s tertiary education
reforms, he was Chief Executive of the New Zealand Qualifications
Authority and previous to this the Chief Executive of the
Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, another CRI.
In the 1990s Dr West was instrumental in New Zealand’s science reforms, including leading the design and establishment of Crown Research Institutes.
Dr West’s doctoral study was in microbial ecology. He is a Director of Seabed Mapping International and the Cawthron Research Institute.
FACILITATORS
Peter Lewis
Peter is Senior Reporter for ABC-TV's weekly rural
affairs programme LANDLINE .
Peter's a politics graduate from the University of New South Wales (1979) , who began his working life in suburban newspapers in Sydney and later the Central Coast before moving to the ABC .
For the best part of twenty years he's worked for the national broadcaster in radio and television news and current affairs in Newcastle , Adelaide , Canberra and now Brisbane covering everything from floods, fires , and federal election campaigns to Formula One motor racing , America's Cup yachting , Olympics and Commonwealth Games.
In 2002 he won the Eureka Prize for Engineering Journalism for a series of Landline reports and in 2004 he took out the prize for Excellence in Rural Journalism in the Queensland Media Awards.
Peter’s also Past-President of the Queensland Rural Press Club.