About CSci

During and after my first degree I spent time working for the University of Massachusetts and US extension services on pesticide efficacy studies and insect pheromone trap trials. I then spent time at Rhodes University in the Republic of South Africa looking at biological control of bracken using exotic insects. Both my MSc and PhD were taken part time with work. In 1985 I started work for the MAFF Food Science Laboratory in Norwich which was later to become part of Defra CSL and to relocate to York transforming into Fera in 2009. My time here was spent first of all looking at migration of chemicals from plastic packaging into food and then to establish the UK’s first laboratory for measuring dioxins in food and other biological/environmental samples. From 1990-1999 I worked on veterinary drug residues with particular interests in method development and the effects of cooking and storage (post-mortem metabolism). In 1999 with the move to York I moved back into the dioxins and wider environmental contaminants area, including emerging contaminants (organo fluorine compounds such as PFOS and brominated organic contaminants such as flame retardants). My role has been to develop work in the wider environment, food and health arena and the application of analytical chemistry to multi-disciplinary research projects looking at aspects such as environmental pathways, remediation, risk assessment methodologies, emergency response (CBRN), bioanalytical methods, ecotoxicology, reproductive toxicology etc.