Staff

Francois has been with the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) since 2021. He began serving as the Laboratories and Technical Services Lead in December 2023. In this role, he oversees the efficient, effective, safe, and compliant operation of all technical facilities and resources within the Institute, uniting and developing NRI’s technical resources across departments and research centres.

Prior to this, Francois held the position of Laboratory Manager at NRI from September 2022 to December 2023, where he managed departmental laboratories, ensured compliance with ISO 9001:2015, supported research and teaching activities, coordinated equipment servicing, sourced and ordered consumables, maintained stock culture collections, and acted as Health and Safety local officer. Before becoming a Laboratory Manager, he worked as an NRI Research Technician from November 2021 to September 2022, providing technical support for NRI’s laboratory, greenhouse, and controlled temperature environment rooms, facilitating laboratory and field teaching activities, supporting research projects, and overseeing data collection and processing for an agrivoltaic materials project.

In addition to his roles at NRI, Francois has extensive experience in hydroponic farming. From November 2018 to June 2021, he was the Research and Development Plant Propagationist at CAN-Agri in Pretoria, South Africa, where he set up operational procedures for a vertical hydroponic farm, oversaw on-farm research, implemented nutritional programmes, established pest management, drafted SOP documentation, trained staff on health and safety, secured certifications (Global G.A.P., HACCP), and liaised with retailers.

Earlier in his career, Francois served as the Assistant Compost Manager at Country Mushrooms PTY Ltd. from July 2015 to October 2018, managing composting processes, supporting mushroom growers, data capturing, and team management. His career in research began as a Research Assistant at the University of Pretoria from January 2012 to June 2015, where he conducted experimental research within the Food Safety Research group, improved experimental accuracy, managed laboratory stock and equipment, conducted field trips, and mentored final-year students.

Throughout his career, Francois has been involved in various research projects and has achieved several certifications, including ISO 22000 advanced HACCP and Food Safety Assurance certification. His memberships and associations include compliance with ISO 9001:2015 and Global G.A.P. standards. Francois’ work is characterised by a strong focus on laboratory management, technical services, health and safety, hydroponic farming, agrivoltaic materials, plant pathology, food safety, experimental research, operational procedures, pest management, and nutritional programmes.

Professor Hans Dobson is a pest and vector management specialist. He has worked for NRI for 34 years and prior to that worked for 2 years as an Agricultural Science teacher and school farm manager in northern Zambia for Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO). He has extensive experience in project management, research, consultancy and training for poverty reduction, including: IPM in vegetables, tree crops, cotton and cereals; food safety and regulatory compliance; control of locusts, tsetse flies, mosquitoes and blackflies; multi-level participatory training strategies; institutional analysis; project and programme design; and project review. He has been seconded in the past to FCDO (formerly DFID) and FAO, and currently to Imperial College London. He has worked in 35 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Good French and a little Danish.

Dr Hayley Thompson joined the Natural Resources Institute in 2022 and is currently a Lecturer in Food Science within the Food and Market Department. Her work sits at the interface of food microbiology, microbial ecology and One Health, with a particular focus on antimicrobial resistance and pathogen transmission across food and environmental systems.

Hayley trained as a molecular microbiologist at King’s College London, where she completed her PhD investigating virulence determinants in the periodontal pathogen Tannerella forsythia. She subsequently held postdoctoral roles at King’s College London and Queen Mary University of London, contributing to internationally funded research on the human oral microbiome, microbial cultivation of previously uncultured bacteria and in vitro biofilm modelling, in collaboration with academic and industrial partners.

At NRI, Hayley initially worked as a molecular microbiologist on the RodentGate project, leading molecular and sequencing‑based investigations of rodent‑borne pathogens and their relevance to livestock and food systems. In November 2024, she transitioned into a lectureship, where she now integrates research leadership, postgraduate supervision and teaching across food microbiology, food safety and One Health. Hayley’s current work contributes to interdisciplinary collaborations across the UK, Europe and South Africa, advancing molecular surveillance, AMR mitigation and One Health approaches to food system resilience.

Dr K. Hansson joined the Natural Resources Institute in 2022 as a postdoctoral Research Fellow. As part of the Ecosystem Services research group at NRI, she studies the contribution of root dynamics to carbon balance of agroforestry coffee plantations in Costa Rica. Her background is in forest ecology, specialising in fine root dynamics and carbon and nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems.

Dr Hansson obtained her MSc in soil science from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, in 2004. Her PhD in Ecology from the same university, titled ‘Impact of Tree Species on Carbon in Forest Soils’ (2011), focused mainly on differences in carbon storage in pine, spruce and birch stands in southern Sweden.

As a postdoctoral researcher at the French National Forest Institute (INRA), she studied the relationship between soil chemical properties, biogeochemical cycling and stand productivity, with the purpose to increase understanding of forest soil chemical fertility.

After a career break, she was awarded a Daphne Jackson Fellowship to join NRI in spring 2022.

Dr Katie James is a lecturer in Ecology and Environmental Science at the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), where she also serves as Deputy Programme Leader for both the BSc Environmental Science and the Masters by Research programmes. Her academic and research work is grounded in a strong interdisciplinary background in behavioural entomology, applied ecology, pollination ecology, and sustainable agriculture.

Dr James graduated with a BSc in Environmental Science from the University of Greenwich in 2019, during which she worked as an entomology assistant for the Natural Resources Institute. This formative experience sparked her enduring interest in insect-plant interactions and ecological networks. She went on to complete a PhD in 2023 titled "The role of species-combination pollination systems in fruit crop production, quality, and nutritional composition." Her doctoral research investigated the ecological and agronomic impacts of diverse pollination systems on fruit crops, examining both yield and nutritional outcomes.

Alongside her PhD, Dr James held the position of Lead Research Assistant at Queen Mary University of London, where she contributed to a major research project on tropical butterflies and their evolutionary adaptations to climate change. This work further broadened her expertise in evolutionary ecology and species responses to environmental pressures.

Leonel Lara-Estrada joined NRI at the beginning of 2020. He moved from Germany, where he did his doctorate on evaluating the potential for adaptation and mitigation of agroforestry systems to climate change, at the R.U. Sustainability and Global Change of the Hamburg Universität (2019). He obtained an M.Sc. degree in Tropical agroforestry from The Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica, his Master’s thesis describes the effects of biophysical factors on the coffee quality and productivity. He completed his B.Sc. degree in Agronomy at the Universidad Nacional Agraria in Nicaragua, his thesis describes the response of different common bean genotypes to mineral fertilization.

After his Master’s degree, Leonel has worked in research and development for the industry and academy. He worked as R&D coordinator for ECOM-Coffee group in Nicaragua (2006-2009) where he was in charge of validating and promoting the use of new coffee hybrids in agroforestry systems as a sustainable intensification strategy for coffee production in the Central American Region. Next, he worked for CATIE in a pilot project to develop a Weather-Index Insurance for coffee in Nicaragua and Honduras (2010-2011). After this, he became a guest researcher at the R.U. Sustainability and Global Change, where he worked in the development of a model to infer the quality of the coffee produced in Nicaragua (2013-2014). Then, Leonel worked in a pilot-project implemented by the World Coffee Research (WCR) and RD2Vision, where Leonel led the activities to identify the threats for coffee production in El Salvador, and the possible farming adaptation practices to face the expected impacts of climate change on the coffee areas in the country (2018).

In parallel, Leonel had been invited to participate as an instructor/speaker in courses and workshops on sustainable agriculture from universities, NGOs and local technical schools (2006-2011, 2017); the topics included agroforestry, coffee breeding, best farming practices, and others.
During this career, Leonel has collaborated and interacted with researchers, practitioners, decision-makers, and farmers; and local and international organizations.

Dr Lucie Büchi completed studies in population biology and genetics, followed by a PhD thesis in theoretical community ecology, at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). She then worked 7 years as a researcher at Agroscope (Switzerland), the Swiss national centre for agricultural research. before joining the Natural Resources Institute in 2018. At Agroscope, she developed projects on the impact of cropping practices, such as reduced tillage and the use of cover crops, on crop production, soil fertility, weed competition etc. She also studied biological nitrogen fixation by legume cover crops, and developed a soil cover agri-environmental indicator for monitoring purpose for the Swiss government. At NRI, Lucie Büchi works as a crop ecologist with a focus on the management of cropping systems in tropical and temperate climates, and on sustainable agriculture approaches such as regenerative agriculture and agroecology. In addition, she is interested in interdisciplinary research around gender and intersectional inequalities related to agriculture, in the Global North and South.

Dr. Marcos Paradelo Pérez joined University of Greenwich in 2020, moving from Rothamsted Research where he was working on the strategic programme ‘Soil to Nutrition’ focus on understanding microorganisms’ interactions with the soil structure under different soil managements.

After graduating with a BSc in Agricultural engineering and a MSc in Agriculture and Food Science and Technology from University of Vigo, Spain, Marcos obtained his PhD degree in 2012 at the same university. He used for the first time the colloid filtration theory to describe the transport and fate of colloidal pesticide formulations through soil that were widely used in Galician (NW Spain) vineyards.

From 2013 to 2018 he carried his postdoctoral research at the Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Denmark. He investigated how soil structure controls soil ecosystem functions, using X-ray CT scanning techniques to predict the movement of water, solutes and colloids through soil. He also studied the changes in soil microbial communities under different soil physical environments and anthropogenic factors. He found that the changes in bacterial communities after herbicide applications is mitigated in soils with higher soil organic matter.

Marcos is always looking for the newest techniques applied to soil science. Together with other colleagues, he has used medical and industrial scanners and other visualization techniques to describe soil architecture, vis-NIR spectroscopy and multivariate models to estimate the partition coefficient of different chemicals in soil and he has got some experienced analysing metagenomic data to describe soil microbial communities. He has helped to developed fast response tensiometers to measure pressure jumps in structured soil during drainage to link pore-scale fluctuations to macropore/core scale fluctuations. Being inspired by frugal technology, he has used inexpensive colloidal tracers (sepia ink) to study colloidal transport in soil. Marcos is also very interested in crowdsourced / citizen science, being involved in testing a litter decomposition method using commercial tea bags.

In 2019 Marcos has been leading a project to create a new farmer-centric platform to monitor soil conditions and benchmark soil health. This project has been selected by ConceptionX, a programme for building deep tech startups from leading research labs and PhD programmes around the UK.

Marcos is a member of NRI's Agriculture, Health & Environment Department, mainly working under the Sustainable Agricultural Intensification Programme within the NRI’s Food and Nutrition Security Initiative, FaNSI.

I have worked at NRI since 1991 as a laboratory technician. During this time, I have gained vast experience in insect rearing and plant propagation, lab management and health and safety including COSHH.

As the Senior Laboratory Technician, I provide technical support to enable NRI’s laboratories, greenhouses and controlled temperature environment rooms to function effectively whilst adhering to correct procedures and health and safety guidelines.

I have experience in areas of plant propagation including growing from seed, cuttings, tubers and tissue culture. I am responsible for integrated pest management systems including identification of pests, knowledge of biological controls and application of approved pesticides. I am experienced in DEFRA quarantine plant import protocols including quarantine and non-indigenous pest monitoring and identifying plant viruses.

I have experience in insect rearing including Lepidoptera, aphids, whitefly, grain storage beetles and mosquitoes. I am experienced in DEFRA insect quarantine import protocols.

I also assist PHD, MSC and 3rd year undergrads in partnership with their supervisors, set up and run their research projects by teaching insect rearing and plant propagating techniques, helping with covering periods of absences, carrying out insectary and greenhouse inductions and instructing on lab procedures