Meet the 2022 Speakers
Jon Aumônier
Project Manager, Innovation
The Coal Authority
Jon is part of the Innovation team at the Coal Authority, focusing on sustainability improvements with our operations and uses for materials generated in our water treatment sites. He has been working on a several product opportunities for Hydrous Ferric Oxide (HFO/ochre) in addition to utilisation of harvested reed biomass.
He has a background in process engineering development for minerals and metal production and in the steel industry. Following a short stint and Newcastle University focusing on geochemistry research, he has subsequently been involved in a varied range of collaborative research projects for the minerals and mining sector before joining the Coal Authority in 2016.
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Matthew is a Chartered Environmentalist with over 20 years experience in the environmental field, with a strong background in contaminated land risk assessment and brownfield redevelopment.
Matthew now serves as a Senior Investigations Officer with Environmental Standards Scotland, an independent body established to monitor and investigate compliance with environmental law in Scotland.
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Jenny is a Chartered Environmentalist with 16 years' experience working in Geo-Environmental Consultancy. She has developed significant expertise across a variety of environmental assessment projects specialising in contaminated land assessments for human health and water environment in the context of Part IIA, Planning Regime, Due Diligence and EIA.
Jenny has worked on soil and groundwater site investigations, risk assessment and remediation projects for a range of clients, including Local Authorities, residential and commercial developers and industrial clients. Jenny helps clients to sustainably design their developments allowing reuse of materials, reducing disposal costs and waste going to landfill. She is currently working on sustainable reuse of materials on a number of road projects in England and housing re-development sites in Central Scotland.
Jenny Colam
Principal Environmental Consultant, Contaminated Land, Atkins
Senior Investigations Officer
Environmental Standards Scotland
Matthew Byerly
Jez Gittins is an experienced geo-environmental scientist who has worked on environmental land investigation and due diligence projects for over 15 years in the UK and abroad. He is currently an Associate Technical Director at Arcadis, based in Edinburgh, where he leads the local geo-environmental team. Jez has experience working in both industry and consultancy, joining the contaminated land sector working for an American Oil Services Company. In consultancy, Jez supports clients through the planning process, organising and project managing ground investigations and reporting on greenfield and brownfield sites for development. Jez is a Chartered Environmentalist, former Chair of the Central Scotland Regional Group of the Geological Society, an assessor for the Institution of Environmental Sciences and a Founding Trustee of the Scottish Geology Trust.
Associate Technical Director
Arcadis
Jez Gittins
Piers Edgell
Account Director
Landmark Information
Piers is an Account Director at Landmark and has many years’ experience working with the UK’s top multi-disciplinary consultancies across environment, infrastructure and commercial property sectors. During this time, Piers has been involved with many of the UK’s largest and most prestigious infrastructure and development/redevelopment schemes, helping ensure professionals working on these schemes are provided with the appropriate intelligence at the right time
Daniel Fry
Principal Geotechnical Engineer
Hydrock
Daniel is an Associate Geotechnical Engineer at Hydrock and has over 14 years experience in the industry. Daniel started his career undertaking ground investigation, site assessment and preliminary risk assessment. In the last 9 years he has specialised in the design, planning and execution of the remediation and redevelopment of brownfield sites all over the country and now leads a team based in the north of England and Scotland. Daniel has expertise in earthworks, materials management and suitability testing and has lead the enabling works design for a number of large scale projects in a variety of sectors including involvement in some of the largest earthworks schemes in the UK.
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Alison McKay
Partner, Leapmoor
& presenting on behalf of the
Scottish Contaminated Land Forum
Alison is a chartered chemist and chartered scientist with over 25 years’ experience gained through working as a regulator, consultant, laboratory chemist and landowners’ representative, Alison specialises in the assessment and management of land affected by contamination, providing expert advice and support to clients to ensure they get the best from their projects. Prior to co-founding Leapmoor in 2017, she worked as an independent consultant for 10 years and previously successfully established and grew a Site Assessment Team in Scotland for BAE Systems Properties Ltd.
Throughout her career she has worked to promote and improve good practice in the land contamination sector, particularly as a member of the Executive Committee of the Scottish Contaminated Land Forum.
Helen is an associate technical director and QRA lead within RSK’s Geoscience division. She is a Chartered Geologist and ASoBRA (controlled waters / water environment) with twenty years’ experience working in environmental consultancy, specialising in contaminated land management and environmental compliance projects for a range of clients within the petrochemical, energy, construction, waste and transportation business sectors, as well as local authorities.
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Helen takes pride in developing robust, practical, sustainable and cost-effective solutions to environmental problems on behalf of clients. She is also actively involved in raising the standards of land contamination risk assessment through her involvement in the EPS Land Quality Expert Advisory Group and SoBRA climate change and controlled waters risk assessment sub-group. Through her professional approach, technical knowledge and wealth of experience she is highly proficient in achieving Regulatory approval for projects, often minimising protracted discussions.
Iain is a chartered town planner and a data analytics and geospatial specialist with the Improvement Service, focussing on local government data used within the planning system and related fields. He has worked with the Scottish Government and local government on a national spatial Vacant and Derelict Land dataset since 2017 and is also supporting the planning data element of the Scottish Government Digital Transformation Programme.
Helen McMillan
Associate Director
RSK
Iain Paton
Spatial Information Project Manager
Improvement Service
John Provan is currently Head of Clyde Mission at the Scottish Government, coming into post in November last year. John has over 30 years of experience in the civil service, working across a range of departments.
Fiona Simpson, Scottish Government Chief Planner has worked for the Scottish Government for 15 years. She has overall responsibility for the work of Planning and Architecture Division, including national planning policy, casework and the digital transformation of the planning system. Fiona provided secretariat support to the independent review of the planning system in 2016, played a key role in planning reform including the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, and is currently leading the preparation of National Planning Framework 4. Fiona led the preparation of National Planning Framework 3, and prior to that was Head of Environmental Assessment and worked across Government to provide technical advice on a wide range of energy, marine and environmental policies and programmes.
Isla Smail
Principal Hydrogeologist
SEPA
Isla Smail is a Principal Hydrogeologist in SEPA’s Water Resources Unit. Her work area at SEPA focuses on contaminant fate and transport in groundwater. She provides technical support to SEPA regulation in a wide range of areas, including groundwater policy, landfills and waste management, pollution incidents, land contamination, and waste crime.
Isla works in partnership with various regulatory, industry and academic organisations on issues relating to groundwater contamination and is currently the SEPA representative on JAGAG. Isla is a Chartered Geologist with over 20 years’ experience as a hydrogeologist. She has worked in both environmental regulation and consultancy, both in the UK and overseas.
Fiona Simpson
Chief Planner
Scottish Government
John Provan
Head of Clyde Mission
Scottish Government
Ashley is managing the Geospatial Network Integrator – Location Data Scotland on behalf of Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Government and the Geospatial Commission.
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She specialises in data, digital and emerging technologies. She is experienced in techno-market/demand analysis, technology roadmap development, strategy and commercialisation support to private and public sector organisations.
She has a BA (hons) Marketing, an MSc IT with Web Development and a PhD in Technology Enhanced Learning and Communities of Practice.
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Dr Claire Stone has been working within the environmental testing sector for over 20 years, with more than 10 of these in a Quality Role, she is our Group Quality Director overseeing our Environmental, Geotechnical and Food laboratories.
Claire has vast experience in laboratory testing and environmental regulation, she plays a key role in the business ensuring the laboratory is at the forefront of developing markets, keeping up with industry best practice and looking at what areas of development the laboratories should focus on, to assist with that she sits on several groups and committees such as EIC, SoBRA, SCA and Regional Contaminated Land Forums. Claire has BSc and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry and has been instrumental in setting up the Asbestos Dustiness Method.
Dr Ken Scally
Dr Ken Scally is an International Environmental Forensic Chemist with over 26 years of experience in petroleum
hydrocarbon analysis and forensic data interpretation, analytical chemistry, and quality management.
He acted as the Forensic Chemistry expert for the damage assessment program on the Gulf of Mexico,
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill; the largest accidental marine oil spill in history and the largest National Resource
Damage Assessment (NRDA) in US history.
He specialises in chemical composition and interpretation of petroleum hydrocarbons in terrestrial and marine
environments and has a detailed understanding of oil chemistry, degradation pathways, aging, and source
correlation indicators.
Dr Claire Stone
Group Quality Director
i2 Analytical UK
Dr Ashley Stewart
Senior Consultant, Optimat &
Lead, Geospatial Network Integrator - Location Data Scotland
Technical and Quality Director
SUEZ
Profile coming soon...
30 years + experience in banking, including Real Estate Development & Investment lending at Royal Bank of Scotland, HBoS & Bank of Ireland.
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In 2008, Martin transitioned to a loan recoveries and workout role, with an emphasis on part built developments and brownfield land. As part of the portfolio management in 2017, he gained exposure to contaminated land and the remediation processes on industrial land in the Midlands, with more recent examples involving utility sites being prepared for residential redevelopment. Now part of the Portfolio Management and Risk team within Maslow Capital a leading Development Finance boutique, his role involves the development of new lending products with an emphasis on the environment and sustainability.
Tom is an Account Director responsible for looking after the top Environmental and Engineering firms in the UK. Tom has worked with Landmark for over a decade, having moved from the conveyancing industry and has experience in both public and private sectors.
Tom Telford
Account Director
Landmark Information
Portfolio Management & Risk
Maslow Capital
Martin Williams
Caroline Thornton
Principal Contaminated Land Specialist
SEPA
Dr. Jagadeesh is a Senior Scientist and head of Human & Environmental group in ICS department at James Hutton Institute.
His research interests focus on the interaction between terrestrial ecosystems and the global atmosphere, with a particular focus on agricultural soils and their role in global carbon and nitrogen cycling. He has co-authored 55+ peer-reviewed publications in top rated scientific journals and gave numerous international presentations including several invited keynotes.
Currently he is a Research Deliverable (RD) leader for delivering Scottish Government Strategic Research Programme on Soils and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. His models and policy reports have been used by several policymakers.
Senior Scientist (Ecosystem Modelling)
The James Hutton Institute