The Power of Microbes in Sustainable Crop Production

Dr Yvonne Pinto

Eagle Genomics

Yvonne Pinto has a long career focused mainly on technology generation, innovation ecosystems and international development. Yvonne began her early career in agricultural research and academia followed by 15 years in private philanthropy - creating and implementing investments in agriculture, enterprise, finance, and education, including the establishment of successful institutions particularly in Africa. She has worked collaboratively with governments, UN agencies, international NGOs, the private sector, bilateral and multilateral donors (including the UK government) and independent private foundations. She has worked respectfully to challenge them to think differently and to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of their work – always with an emphasis on robust evidence and listening to a diversity of views. Her experience has ranged from working towards solutions to some of the most intractable disease problems facing African agriculture to understanding the successful elements of digital economies and technology ecosystems at the policy and practice level. She has a keen interest in big data and its
interface with science and sustainability in the bio-revolution that is upon us.

Professor Thomas Bell

Professor of Microbial Ecology, Imperial College London

My research looks at the ecology and evolution of microbial communities. Microbial communities are among the most complex, diverse, and poorly understood groups of organisms. My research combines laboratory-based experiments with field-based manipulations of naturally-occurring communities.

Areas of particular interest include:

• Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in bacterial communities, including methods for developing and analyzing large-scale biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments.
• Spatial patterns in bacterial communities.
• Predator-prey relationships among microbial groups, particularly the effect of protist predators on bacterial prey.

Dr Fiona Brennan

Teagasc

I am a senior Research Officer in Soil Microbiology at the department of Environment, Soils and Landuse in Johnstown Castle, where I lead a research group focused on the soil and plant microbiome.  Our research group aims to harness knowledge of the soil and plant microbiome towards the development of sustainable, resilient agricultural systems. We are currently assessing the impact of agricultural practice on soil health, microbial-soil-plant interactions and microbial functioning, particularly with respect to the role of microbial communities in soil nutrient cycles, greenhouse gas emissions and plant health. We have an interest in the development of indicators and tools for assessment of soil health and biological functioning. We also investigate the impact of climate stressors on microbial function, the role of microbial communities in supporting climate resilient agricultural systems, and the ecology of enteropathogens in the environment. As part of my role I hold an adjunct lecturer position in NUI Galway and am a researcher within Vistamilk and APC Microbiome Ireland research centres. I am a currently an associate editor with the European journal of Soil Science.

Professor Nicola Holden

Scotland's Rural University College (SRUC)

I am a molecular bacteriologist interested in how some microbes, e.g. foodborne pathogens or hazards such as AMR, are transmitted via environmental sources. The technical approaches are in molecular microbiology, genomics and microbiomes. I work with stakeholders in public health and the agri-food industry.

My roles are:

• Lead the Safe & Improved Foods challenge-driven research centre
• Lead research into the interactions between human pathogenic bacteria and food products, pre- and post-harvest, to reduce foodborne illness  
• Manage Scottish Government strategic research between Scottish research providers
• Supervision of staff, students and visitors; teaching and external examinations
• Committee member for external organisations

Dr Ashish Malik

University of Aberdeen

My research focuses on understanding soil microbial processes and the underlying mechanisms from population and community to ecosystem scales. The aim is to link microbial biodiversity and physiology to element cycling with a focus on soil carbon. A key question is also to determine how environmental change affects these linkages and thus ecosystem functioning.  I use this improved process-based understanding to generate translational knowledge required to address the key societal challenges of sustainable land use, climate change resilience and natural habitat restoration.

Dr Frances Ryan

The Centre for Supporting Evidence-Based Interventions in Livestock (SEBI)

Frances is currently supporting SEBI-Livestock to build an evidence base, focused on the connections between livestock production and the environment. Frances has a varied environmental and biological science background. Previous work has involved researching chemicals in the environment as well as monitoring pollen. Frances has also explored the relationship between India’s mandatory corporate social responsibility spend and smallholders, who supply rice to large companies. Frances holds a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, in conjunction with Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), where she developed a nutrient budget assessment approach for livestock and arable systems in Scotland covering a 31 year period.

Leo van Overbeek

Senior Scientist, Wageningen University & Research

Leo van Overbeek is senior scientist at Wageningen Plant Research, part of Wageningen University and Research, the Netherlands. He is microbial ecologist by training and his main field of expertise is on plant microbial interactions. He is currently involved in plant and soil microbiome research and leading several projects on tripartite interactions between plants, plant and human pathogens and the microbiome. Further, he is involved in the ecology of human pathogens and bacterial species carrying antibiotic resistances in the plant-soil ecosystem. In this role, he was the chair on the EU COST action on the control of human pathogens in agricultural production systems (HUPLANTcontrol). Most recently, he is involved in national and international collaborations on the interconnectivity of microbiomes between different ecosystems relevant for food production.

Professor Christine Watson

Scotland's Rural College

Christine Watson is Professor of Agricultural Systems at SRUC (Scotland’s Rural College, http://www.sruc.ac.uk/). She currently holds the KSLA Wallenberg Professorship  at SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences).  Christine’s research focuses on the management of micro and macro nutrients in organic and conventional agri-food systems at a range of scales from local to continental. Over the past 5 years much of her research has focused on assessing and developing legume based farming systems in Africa and Europe. Christine was President of the European Society for Agronomy (2014/2016), and President of the Association of Applied Biologists (2017/18). She is an Associate Editor of Legume Science and on the editorial board of the European Journal of Agronomy. Christine was also a member of the EIP Focus Group on Mixed Crop Livestock systems.