Biography

I have a BSc Honours (1975) in Applied Microbiology from Strathclyde University, UK. My MSc (1977) and PhD (1979) were in Chemistry from the University of Manchester, UK. My 2.5 year postdoctoral appointment was at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University, New York, USA. I worked at the Centre for Industrial Innovation, Strathclyde University for 2 years before being employed at CABI, UK where I was the Senior Scientist researching Fungal Natural Products. At present I am employed as a researcher at the IBB Centre for Biological Engineering, University of Minho, Portugal. I was awarded the IOI Professorial Chair on Plant Pathology at the Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia in 2008. Directorship of Mycotec Lda, a fungal biotech company, has been a recent appointment of mine. My involvement in training courses relating to food fungi is extensive and have worked in many countries particularly in S. E. Asia. I have written large reports on biotechnology for the Highlands and Islands region of Scotland and Indonesia. I was central to a fungal bioprospecting project in the Iwokrama rain forest of Guyana and co-wrote a large report. I have supervised numerous undergraduate and postgraduate students. Postdoctoral researchers have worked under my supervision and I have been the reporting officer of members of staff in the UK. I am a European Research Council External Reviewer of Projects (2012, 2013) and an invited assessor of Portuguese FCT projects. Numerous papers in journals and chapters in books have been published by me, with a total publication list of c. 200.