Speaker profiles

Profiles of speakers will be added as they are confirmed.

DR ROBERT BANKS

Meat and Livestock Australia

Dr. Rob Banks grew up in Tasmania and studied agricultural science before moving to Armidale NSW to complete a PhD in Genetics under Stuart Barker.

Well before genetic engineering became topical Rob, in the course of his PhD study, tripled the size of fruit flies. Fortunately he has since turned his attention to grazing animals and the results have also been encouraging.

He returned to Tasmania as senior geneticist for the Dept. Agriculture before returning to Armidale to take up the post of National Coordinator of LAMBPLAN. After some 10 years in that role, he has managed the Genetics R&D portfolio for MLA, and is currently Manager for On-Farm R&D for Southern Australia. This role includes supervising MLA’s investments into pasture breeding, as well as supervising the strategies for genetic and genomic improvement in beef cattle and sheep.

Rob has co-supervised a number of post-grad and honours students at UNE, and played a significant role in the planning of the current Sheep CRC. Throughout his career he has maintained a strong interest in the effective industry use of breeding technologies, in breeding program design, and in the evaluation of and strategy for, investment in breeding programs.

In 2005 he was awarded a Clunies-Ross Prize for Science in the Community, for his contribution to the development of the Australian Lamb Industry.

DR JOERG BOHLMANN

Dr. Joerg Bohlmann has established an internationally recognized program in forestry genomics and natural plant products biology. The main focus of his research is on genomics of defense and resistance mechanisms of conifers against insect pests and insect-associated fungal pathogens.

He was project leader of Canada’s first large-scale forestry genomics project, “Treenomix” (2001 – 2005), funded by Genome Canada and Genome BC. This project established for the first time genomics research on spruce and was a major contributor to the sequencing and mapping of the Poplar genome (published in 2006 in Science). Dr. Joerg Bohlmann is currently project leader of the “Treenomix – Conifer Forest Health Project” (2006 – 2009) also funded by Genome Canada and Genome BC, whilst a co-investigator on the “GrapeGen” project (2003 – 2006) funded by Genome Canada, Genome BC, and Genome Spain. Other research undertaken deals with plant natural products including various aspects of the molecular biochemistry and functions of plant terpenoids, such as terpenoid chemical defenses in conifers and fruit flavor biochemistry of wine grapes. In the face of the current Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic and its multiple billion dollar impact on Canada’s forest economy, research in Dr. Joerg Bohlmann’s laboratory is not only of fundamental importance for the advancement of basic science in forest health, but is also relevant for the long-term sustainability of Canada’s forests. In the last five years Dr. Joerg Bohlmann work has been published in over 60 peer-review papers.

MARGARET BYRNE

Margaret Byrne obtained a PhD in plant genetics from The University of Western Australia in 1991. She then moved to CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products where she investigated genetic mapping and QTL analysis in eucalypts. In 1996 she returned to Perth to establish a molecular genetics laboratory in the then Department of Conservation and Land Management.

Margaret is currently Senior Principal Research Scientist in the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation. She conducts genetic research in plant conservation and recovery, and in the utilisation of native plants in agroforestry and revegetation. She has expertise in population genetics, provenance variation, conservation genetics, phylogenetics and evolutionary patterns in the Australian flora. Her studies have used molecular markers for the nuclear and chloroplast genomes to investigate genetic variation, genetic differentiation, phylogenetic relationships, evolutionary lineages, and phylogeographic patterns in Australian plants.

CHARLIE CLARKE

Charlie completed an Honours Forestry Degree at University College of North Wales (UCNW), Bangor in 1978, followed by a MSc in agriculture (genetics) at University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg in 1991 and, lastly, a PhD at UCNW, Bangor in 1996. He joined Sappi Forests in South Africa in 1984 in the planning office. Two years later he moved to the newly formed Sappi Forests Research and Development Department and took up the position of Hardwood Tree Breeder. Fifteen years later he formed the Fibre Research Section within Forests R&D and in 2002 he was appointed to the position of manager of the Fibre Processing department at the Sappi Technology Centre in Pretoria. He has recently been appointed to the Manager of the South African Technology Centre which includes departments in Fibre Processing, Paper Sciences, Chemical Sciences and Environment. He describes himself as well travelled, widely published, globally renowned, locally underrated, unbelievably modest and a connoisseur of good coffee.

CHRISTINE A. DEAN

Vice President of Timberlands Technology, Weyerhaeuser Company

Based in Federal Way, Washington, Christine is responsible for providing global leadership for forestry and environmental research for the company’s Timberlands related business activities.

Christine holds a bachelor of science degree from Flinders University, South Australia and a Ph.D. in quantitative genetics from the University of Queensland. Formerly, Christine was employed by Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia. Christine’s research background was in forest breeding strategy and selection efficiency including working on integration of clonal and biotechnology information into operational forestry practices. Christine joined Weyerhaeuser Company in 1993 as a research scientist and became a business technical director in 1999.

TONY JACK

Information coming soon, please check back shortly.

CHRISTOPHER JONES

School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia

Originally from Warwick in Southern Queensland, Chris commenced a BSc in Chemistry in 1998 at the University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales.  In 2003 he moved to Perth to commence a graduate Diploma in Botany, where he became involved with tropical sandalwood research.  This lead to a PhD program, which he completed in March 2008.

His current research seeks to determine the genetic and physiological factors responsible for essential oil production in the heartwood of both tropical and West Australian sandalwood, (Santalum album and S. spicatum respectively).  This is an ARC-Linkage project between UWA and the Forest Products Commission of Western Australia, with collaboration from the University of British Columbia, Canada.

GREG LINSLEY-NOAKES

Greg Linsley-Noakes qualified as a forester through Saasveld College of Forestry (University of Port Elisabeth now Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa). He worked for the Department of Environmental Affairs, Cape Regional Council and Mondi Forests in South Africa before immigrating to Tasmania in 2000. Greg has worked for FEA since 2001.

His first role with FEA was Area Forester, followed by Plantation Manager (2003), Manager of Forest Management Information Systems (2005) and Tree Improvement and Seedling Procurement Manager (2007). Greg has been active in seed and seedling procurement since 2003 and he is currently managing production of 24 million seedlings in 12 nurseries.

DR SIMON POTTER

Research Program Leader for Forest Polymers and Fibres, Division of Materials Science and Engineering Commonwealth Science Industry Research Organisation

Dr Potter joined CSIRO in 2004 after working for seven years as a Research Scientist with the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada (Paprican). He has a Doctor of Philosophy in Molecular Biology from the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

In 2006, Dr Potter was awarded the Gottstein Fellowship, which enabled him to spend two weeks in Tennessee, USA, studying a technique called Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) - a fast, non-destructive evaluation technology that looks at the inorganic components of wood chemistry.

In 2005, Dr Potter was part of the team who won the CSIRO Corporate Award for Business Excellence in recognition of securing the sale of the SilviScan™ system to Canada.Dr Potter is a member of the Technical Association of Pulp and Paper Industry in the United States (TAPPI) and the Eucalyptus Genome Consortium.
The focus of Dr Potter’s research is rapid assessment techniques and molecular breeding for wood qualities and non-destructive techniques to examine the best uses for wood. These are techniques that help processors segregate wood according to its most appropriate use, and inform breeders which wood to grow according to the processors’ demands.

Dr Potter is currently involved in the establishment of a wood informatics centre. This is a facility that is unique in the world and will provide a holistic understanding of how wood is formed, its structure and how that structure affects its end-use.

DR JEFF WRIGHT

Product Development Manager, ArborGen LLC, South Carolina USA

Jeff Wright has a distinguished record of tree breeding, research management and business development for plantation forestry around the globe. He has worked as a private consultant (1996-2001) and held research management positions with Sappi in South Africa (1984-1991), Smurfit in South America (1990-1996) and Rayonier in USA (2001-2004). He has worked for ArborGen since 2004 as Business Development Manager and Product Development Manager.

ArborGen is a global leader in the research, development and commercialization of applications and solutions in tree genetics, including varietal forestry, that improve wood growth and quality for the forest products industry. ArborGen is headquartered in Summerville, South Carolina, USA and operates regional divisions in New Zealand / Australia and Brazil.