Professor Peter Langridge, is on the Advisory Boards of the European Union BioExploit and TriticeaeGenome Programs, the Australian Research Council Centre for Integrative Legume Research, the National Science Foundation Wheat D-Genome Program in the USA and the IBERS Science & Impact Advisory Board at Aberystwth, UK.

Peter is an Honorary Fellow of the Scottish Crop Research Institute (now The James Hutton Institute) and in 2007 was appointed Fellow of Food Standards Australia and New Zealand. Over the past five years he has published over 50 papers in international journals, co-authored seven book chapters and co-edited a book on Plant Genomics.

During 2010 he was an invited speaker at conferences in the UK, Europe, China, India and USA. Peter was also on the organising committee for several international conferences during 2010.  Also in 2010 Peter chaired the expert working group the ‘Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council’ who delivered the report ‘Australian and Food Security in a Changing World outlining strategies to address food security globally.

In May 2011, Peter along with French colleagues lead a presentation to Agricultural Ministers at the G20 summit in Paris for the establishment of an International Wheat Research Initiative. The agreement to support the initiative was made by G20 delegates on 23 June this year.

Peter has supervised over 50 PhD students to completion and is on three journal editorial boards: Theoretical and Applied Genetics, Plant Methods and International Journal of Plant Genomics.

His research interests are in the area of the development and application of molecular biology to crop improvement

Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Values, Ethics, and the Law in Medicine, at the University of Sydney.

Research interests – Philosophical arguments with real-world implications.

More specifically, Rob works in or has worked in political philosophy, bioethics, environmental ethics, media ethics; just war theory; and the ethics of science and technology.

For example:

Environmental ethics

Especially the ethics of genetic modification, the ethics of our treatment of complex inorganic systems, and also applications of virtue ethical arguments to environmental issues.

New reproductive technologies

A large proportion of Rob’s philosophical work in bioethics concerns the ethics of new reproductive technologies and especially their implications for our ideas about normal human bodies and the importance of genetic relatedness.

The ethics of nanotechnology

Rob has participated in debates about the ethics of nanotechnology both because of the possible implications and impacts of nanotechnology and also because these debates offer a unique opportunity to discuss how a democratic society should make decisions about science and technology policy.

More information (from his old position at Monash University)

http://arts.monash.edu.au/philosophy-bioethics/staff/rsparrow.php

Director at JCMA consulting

Carl has more than 18 years experience working in the public sector as a research scientist, Government policy analyst and more recently in regulatory affairs and compliance management.

Previous positions:

Manager, Compliance at Biosciences Research

Carl was responsible for the management of regulatory compliance, risk management and quality assurance portfolios including statutory responsibilities under the Gene Technology (Commonwealth) Act 2000; the National Health and Security Act 2007; responsibilities under the Quarantine Act 1908 and the Plant Health and Plant Products (Victoria) Act 1995; and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986; and the Australian Code of Practice for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes.

Senior Scientist, Victorian Department of Primary Industries

The role provided science and project leadership and resource management to the development of a GM wheat program with a large multi-national partner.

Dr Alex Johnson

Alex is a lecturer at the University of Melbourne, School of Botany, where he runs a laboratory exploring several areas of plant nutrition and leads a project aimed at the development of rice varieties with increased concentrations of iron in the white rice grain. He has a Master of Science and PhD from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the US. He has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Cambridge, Department of Plant Sciences, and ACPFG Adelaide, where he researched genetic mechanisms underlying salinity tolerance and nutrient transport in plants.