Council Members
Dr Michelle Bloor (A)
President
Michelle is an Associate Professor in Environmental Science and Risk at the School of Social and Environmental Sustainability. Her research focuses on chemicals, waste and pollution. She is the Research Director for Scotland’s National Centre for Resilience, Senior Fellow of the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Public Policy and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. She is the Editor-in-Chief for Sustainable Environment and Editor for the book series Issues on Environmental Science and Technology. She is a member of the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) Roster of Experts, Sherpa to the European Commission’s High-Level Round Table for the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, PIANOFORTE Partnership’s Advisory Board member, UK Government Chemicals Stakeholder Forum member, member of the Scottish Chemical Policy Network (SCPN), and member of the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) Specialist Advisory Group, addressing the issues and challenges to the circular economy as posed by Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
Dr Liz Nicol (B)
Council Member
Liz is a Senior Chemical Policy Consultant at Amec Foster Wheeler and is responsible for evaluating the implications of changing legislation or regulation of chemicals at the UK and EU level. Before this, she worked on a range of water quality projects, including the use of chemical source apportionment models to inform regulation of emissions of persistent pollutants and modelling the remediation and longevity of legacy contaminants in the environment. Liz previously completed a PhD in Ecotoxicology and Population biology at Brunel University where she investigated the effect of steroid hormones on fish populations and has also worked in research positions at both UCL and Imperial. She is also a STEM ambassador and member of the WISE campaign for gender balance in science, technology and engineering.
Miss Rhea Shears (B)
Secretary
Rhea undertook both her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the University of Portsmouth. She graduated with a First Class Environmental Science degree and a Masters of Research in ecotoxicology, in which she achieved a Distinction, and focused on aquatic pollution from pharmaceuticals. Her research involved developing a novel video tracking approach to identify behavioural changes at a range of doses.
Rhea now works for Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) the largest international industry funded co-operative that deals with response and preparedness as an oil spill responder. In her current role, she assists with client facing activities - advising members through both exercises and spills, as well as being hands on with the most appropriate response techniques, to minimise the recovery impact. Rhea also works with the dispersant core group at OSRL and collaborates on the current ecotoxicology research advances within oil spill response.
Dr Laura Carter (A)
Council Member
Laura an Environmental Chemist with an interest in the fate and uptake of emerging contaminants in the natural environment, with a particular focus on soil-plant systems.
Since completing her PhD at The University of York, Laura has spent time as a Risk Assessor at Unilever’s Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre (SEAC) and as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Adelaide, Australia where she investigated the biological effects of pharmaceutical uptake into plants. Laura returned to work as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of York in 2015, where she contributed to the European iPiE project on the intelligent assessment of pharmaceuticals in the environment. Laura is now based at the University of Leeds and was appointed as a University Academic Fellow under the 250 Great Minds Initiative in 2018.
Since starting at the University of Leeds Laura has been awarded a £1.2 M Future Leaders Fellowship to start a research programme on ‘Contaminants of Emerging Concern: A Risk to Soil and Plant Health?’ Laura has presented her research at a number of international conferences, published her work in peer reviewed journals and co-authored a book chapter. Laura currently supervises a number of PhD projects investigating the fate, uptake and toxicity of pharmaceuticals and microplastics in aquatic and terrestrial systems whilst taking on an active role in the SETAC Pharmaceutical Global Interest Group.
Dr Thomas Miller (A)
Council Member
Thomas Miller is a postdoctoral research associate at King’s College London and currently holds a PhD in Environmental Toxicology (KCL). Previous taught degrees include a MSc in Analytical Chemistry and a BSc (Hons) in Biology. His interdisciplinary research is currently focussed on the impact of environmental micropollutants on aquatic wildlife. Thomas is currently a named co-investigator on a BBSRC Industrial Partnership Award (IPA) held with AstraZeneca and the Francis-Crick Institute (ref: BB/P005187/1). The research will focus on the development of high-throughput screening methods for the analysis of pharmaceuticals and their impact on the metabolome and phenotypic traits.