We are delighted to announce that the following Keynote Speakers have been confirmed.
Dr Luc M Maene
Luc Maene is the Director-General of the International Fertiliser Industry Association (IFA) and Vice-Chairman of the Board of the International Fertiliser Development Centre (IFDC). He is a Belgian national who graduated in agricultural engineering (Gent 1970) and worked on overseas projects in Malaysia and Tunisia for several years. Since 1982, he has been involved in all aspects of fertilisers, first in the UN, then IFA for many years and he is a world expert in this area. He has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Putra Malaysia.
Professor Bruce James
Bruce James, Department of Environmental Science & Technology, University of Maryland, specialises in oxidation/reduction processes in soils and water. He is particularly interested in environmental issues and the productive interaction between landscapes, soils and people, and has lectured and published widely on these topics.
Dr Neil McKenzie
Neil McKenzie is the Chief of CSIRO Land & Water. He obtained his BS, MS and PhD degrees at University of New England, Australia, in the area of Natural Resources and has developed a specialist interest in soil classification and monitoring. He has formulated national standards for soil measurement & monitoring as well as soil survey & land assessment with new methods for digital soil mapping. He has made substantial contributions to the book ‘Australian Soils and Landscapes’ and to the establishment of the comprehensive Australian Soil Resources Information System (ASRIS).
Dr Pedro Sanchez
Pedro Sanchez is Director of the Tropical Agriculture and the Rural Environment Program, Senior Research Scholar and Director of the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. He directs the African Soils Information Service (AfSIS) to develop the digital soils map of the world. Dr Sanchez is Professor Emeritus of Soil Science & Forestry, North Carolina State University, and served as Director-General of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) from 1991-2001. He received his BS, MS and PhD degrees in soil science from Cornell University. His professional career is dedicated to help eliminate world hunger and absolute rural poverty while protecting and enhancing the tropical environment. He is author of ‘Properties & Management of Soils of the Tropics’. He serves on the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources of the US National Academy of Sciences. Pedro Sanchez is the 2002 World Food Prize laureate and a 2004 MacArthur Fellow.
Professor Robert Zeigler
Robert Zeigler is Director-General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines since 2005 where he previously worked during the 1990s. He received his BS from the University of Illinois (1972), his MS from Oregon State University (1978), and his PhD in plant pathology from Cornell University (1982). Robert has extensive international experience, particularly in Africa and Latin America. He worked in Burundi from 1982 for 3 years as technical adviser to the nation’s maize program, then at CIAT as the Institute’s senior plant pathologist until 1992, and then to IRRI for six years as the leader of the Rainfed Lowland Rice Research Program. Robert then became Professor and Head of the Department of Plant Pathology and Director of the Plant Biotechnology Centre at Kansas State University. He subsequently became Director of the Mexico-based Generation Challenge Program Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Through these and other activities he has now accumulated more than 30 years of knowledge and experience in international agricultural research and related matters.
Dr Colin Chartres
Colin Chartres took up his current position as
Director-General of the International
Water Management Institute (IWMI) in October 2007. Dr Chartres has 30
years experience in research and policy reform in Australia and overseas,
across the area of natural resources management, with a focus on water and
soils. He holds a PhD in Pedology from the University of Reading, U.K. and a
BSc. in Geography from the University of Bristol. U.K. Colin has spent a considerable part of his
career working on international development issues with organizations such as
CSIRO and the Australian Geological Survey Organization (AGSO). He was a Chief
Scientist of the Bureau of Rural Sciences and a Past Chair of the Global
Research Alliance Water Action Council and of Australia’s National Radio-active
Waste Repository Advisory Committee. Prior to joining IWMI he was Chief Science
Advisor to Australia’s National Water Commission and also worked as Chief of
Division of Geo-hazards, at AGSO, leading research on earthquake risks and
groundwater resources. Colin supervised projects for the National Land and
Water Resources Audit in Australia and was a member of the Steering Committee
of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food. Colin has published over 120
papers, book chapters and reports on soil, water and agricultural management
issues. He believes that most of today’s water issues cannot be solved without
a truly integrated triple bottom line approach, involving environmental, social
and economic inputs.
Professor Will Steffen
Will Steffen is the Executive Director of the
Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University. Professor Steffen has a BSc from the
University of Missouri and MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Florida,
USA. Will Steffen has a long history in
international global change research, serving from 1998 to 2004 as Executive
Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), based in
Stockholm, Sweden, and before that as Executive Officer of IGBP’s Global Change
and Terrestrial Ecosystems project.
Prior to taking up the Directorship of the Climate Change Institute in
2008, Steffen was the inaugural director of ANU Fenner School of Environment
and Society. From 2004 he has served as
science adviser to the Australian Government’s Department of Climate
Change. Steffen’s research interests
span a broad range within the field of sustainability and Earth System science,
with an emphasis on the science of climate change, approaches to climate change
adaptation in land systems, incorporation of human processes in Earth System
modelling and analysis; and the history and future of the relationship between
humans and the rest of nature.
Dr Andrew Ash
Andrew Ash is the director of the CSIRO Climate Adaptation National Research Flagship, which aims to equip Australia with practical and effective options to prepare for the impacts of climate change and variability. Dr Ash works closely with government agencies, businesses and communities, raising awareness of the need to adapt to unavoidable climate change. He oversees a $30 million nationwide portfolio of research projects, partnerships and collaborations. Andrew has a keen interest in better integrating our understanding of climate science with decision-making and developing ways to mainstream climate adaptation into policy processes. Throughout his career, a feature of Dr Ash’s research has been a systems approach that strives to examine both biophysical and socio-economic aspects of environmental sustainability. His early work was in agricultural science - investigating how climate, grazing and fire influence the productivity and health of agriculture and ecosystems in northern Australia.
