Trustees

Dr Michael Fay  (Chair)

Dr Mike Fay is Head of Genetics at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.  After studying genetics and tissue culture, he started work at Kew 20 years ago. For the first 10 years, he ran the Micropropagation Unit where many tropical and temperate orchids are propagated, mainly from seed.  Then he moved to the Jodrell Laboratory (also at Kew) and established a programme in conservation genetics, with a major focus on UK species, but with other projects from elsewhere.

Orchids continue to be a major focus of his work, and current projects relate to conservation genetics of Cypripedium calceolus, Dactylorhiza spp., Liparis loeselii, Neotinea ustulata and Orchis spp.  In addition to European orchids, he has also been involved in projects on orchids from elsewhere through collaborations with colleagues in Brazil, La Réunion, the USA and elsewhere.  He replaced Dr Phil Cribb as Chair of the IUCN SSC Orchid Specialist Group in 2006.

Philip Seaton

A lecturer in biology by profession, Phil's interest in orchids began as an amateur grower almost thirty years ago, and he soon became involved in the scientific aspects of orchid conservation in general, and the problems of setting up orchid seed banks in particular.  Phil received the degree of Master of Philosophy in 1985 for researches into orchid seed storage, and changes in the gaseous composition of the atmosphere within culture flasks.  He has subsequently pursued his interest in the storage of orchid germplasm whenever possible, with Hugh Pritchard of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.  He has had published more than eighty popular and scientific articles on a wide range of orchid related topics.

Philip was awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship for the year 2000 to study the problems of the ex situ conservation of orchids in Cuba, Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador.  Philip is also Chair of the OSG's Ex Situ Conservation Group.

Dr Phillip Cribb

Phil Cribb joined the staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1974 from where he retired as Deputy Keeper of the Herbarium and Curator of the Orchid Herbarium in 2006.

His particular interests are in Natural History and conservation.  His current research is concentrated on a new classification of the family Orchidaceae, and on the taxonomy and conservation of orchids.  He has participated in many expeditions, especially in the tropics, to study orchids in the field.  He has also led botanical tours, especially in the tropics, for over 25 years.

He is the author or co-author of several books and over 400 papers on orchids.  He is a member of the Royal Horticultural Society's Orchid Committee, the International Orchid Commission and is immediate past Chair of fhe Orchid Specialist Group SSC/IUCN.

Professor Mike Hutchings

Mike Hutchings is Professor of Ecology at the University of Sussex, UK.

His doctoral training was in plant population ecology.  Early in his career at Sussex he initiated several long-term studies of the population ecology and conservation of terrestrial orchid species of temperate grasslands, especially Ophrys sphegodes and Gymnadenia conopsea, and these datasets now cover continuous recording periods of up to thirty years.  Analyses of these data, and others, on species such as Orchis militaris, have compared and contrasted the behaviour and fates of populations under contrasting management regimes, provided the scientific basis for selection of appropriate management for conservation, and been used to predict the effects of different scenarios on population persistence.

Amongst over one hundred scientific publications, Mike has written numerous papers on orchids and other rare species and their conservation, and has recently collaborated on analyses of recent changes in distribution range of rare species in different European countries.  He is a member of the OSG's In Situ Conservation Group.  His other research interests include the restoration of calcareous grassland habitats, the ecology of clonal plant species, and the responses of individual plants, plant populations and plant communities to of environmental patchiness.  He shares research collaborations with scientists in several European countries, Mexico, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and China.

Professor Harold Koopowitz

Harold's profile will be posted shortly

Simon Pugh-Jones

Simon's profile will be posted shortly

Dr David Roberts

David was educated at the Universities of Aberystwyth and Aberdeen where he received his doctorate on the "Reproductive Biology and Conservation of the Orchids of Mauritius".  He has had field experience in Mauritius, La Reunion, Rodrigues, Borneo, Madagascar, Cameroon, and the Chatham Islands.  Currently David is an orchid taxonomist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he has a particular interest in the orchids of tropical Africa, islands of the western Indian Ocean and alterative uses of herbarium data particularly relating to conservation biology such as climate change and extinction modelling.

Dr Peter Tobias

Peter Tobias is Professor of Immunology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.  As best he can tell, this job has absolutely nothing to do with orchids.  However, he was the first chairman of the San Diego County Orchid Society's Conservation Committee.  He resigned that position in 2005 to found the Orchid Conservation Alliance (OCA).  The OCA is an American non-profit corporation with the mission of raising funds from orchid enthusiasts to preserve wild orchid habitat.  As of this writing in 2006 the OCA has raised $10,000 to purchase land in Ecuador for the Ecoming Foundation near Banos.