Darren is a geoscientist and NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the British Geological Survey. His work focuses on improving the utility of geoscience in brownfield redevelopment projects and his research interests are human exposure to soil contaminants, predictive modelling of geochemical data and multicriteria analysis of spatial data for decision making.

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Prior to BGS, Darren worked for 10 years in environmental consultancy focusing on risk-based land management and environmental assessments for land-use planning. Positions held include Director and Principal Consultant for regional firms in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

Gemma Campbell joined the Scottish Land Commission in 2019 and is the Land Rights and Responsibilities Manager. She has a background in finance, community-led development, funding, and community ownership, and has worked across the private, public and third sectors. Gemma’s focus at the Commission is on embedding responsible land ownership, and she manages a programme of guidance, training, casework, and advice that supports key stakeholders across all sectors to strengthen their adoption of Land Rights and Responsibilities principles in their strategy and delivery. 

Ian Cochrane is a Director with Mason Evans, a specialist geo-environmental firm that regularly undertakes the verification of various elements of gas protection measures across the UK but mainly work in Scotland.

Ian is a contaminated land practitioner with international experience, where the last 15 years have been focused mainly in the UK. 

He is also one of the inaugural 7 gas verification specialists registered under the recent CL:AIRE SGPV scheme, and continues to act in the capacity of assessor for said scheme.    

Karlene is a Chartered Civil Engineer who specialises in the development and management of projects which bring vacant and derelict land and buildings back into use. Since joining Perth & Kinross Council in 2022, her role is to stimulate and support development of vacant commercial and residential properties which are privately owned.

Before this she led the award winning Scottish Land Commission & Development Trust Association Scotland partnership project, undertaking action research with community-based organisations to develop policy recommendations which could enable scaling up of community-led regeneration of Scotland’s small urban ‘stuck sites’. Community-led regeneration and sustainability are passions of Karlene, who is also a Trustee of her local environmental charity.

Since 2010 John has led the delivery of Winchburgh Core Development Area in West Lothian, initially as Development Director for fund managers Sigma Capital, and since 2014 as Chief Executive Officer of Winchburgh Developments Ltd. In his early career he practiced as a surveyor on Glasgow's urban renewal programme and in the initial phases of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. He also gained extensive experience on the delivery of estates property for the Ministry of Defence and the oil industry.

He later spent a period of ten years with project management specialists MPM Adams on major mixed use residential, healthcare and retail developments throughout the UK. He subsequently worked for Miller Homes Scotland as Technical Director, initially in Edinburgh and latterly in the Glasgow Region. He is a former chairman of the Scottish Property Federation and in 2015 was appointed by the Scottish Government as a member of the independent panel formed to report on recommendations to Ministers for the reform of the Scottish Planning system.

Helen is a qualified hydrogeologist, Chartered Geologist and ASoBRA (controlled waters/water environment) with 20 years’ experience working in environmental consultancy, specialising in land contamination risk assessment (Part IIA and planning) and environmental compliance projects.

Helen is actively involved in raising the standards of land contamination risk assessment through her involvement in the EPS Land Quality Expert Advisory Group, leading the SoBRA Climate Change and Controlled Waters sub-group and by presenting at high profile land contamination conferences in the UK. A career highlight was winning the 2022 Brownfield Award for Best Project Preparatory Work.

Kevin joined Monarflex Geomembranes in 1988, he attended one of the first ground gas conferences in Nottingham ‘Methane 89’ and has been involved in gas protection membranes ever since, moving to Landline in 1993. He was a member of the group developing the National Occupational Standards, which became the NVQ L2 qualification in gas membrane installation. Kevin was involved with both the Ciria C735 steering group and then the development of the CL:AIRE qualification to improve standards in verification and inspection. With the formation of Butek Landline in 2014 Kevin became UK Technical Manager in 2017. 

Kevin has been Chair of the British Geomembrane Association for the last 4 years and has introduced the gas membrane company accreditation scheme to further improve the standard of installation across the whole industry. industry

Kirstie has worked within the regulatory environment for over twenty years and has been a Contaminated Land Officer at South Lanarkshire Council since 2015. She has been a Registered Risk Assessor for Human Health and Permanent Gases since 2018.  

Kirstie is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management and recently retired from the Scottish Contaminated Land Forum, where she was an active member for a number of years.

Donald studied geology at Edinburgh and remote sensing at Leicester.  His sole published academic paper is on the subject of rock-glaciers in the central Andes.  He worked as a cartographer in India before becoming a land contamination specialist with Fife Council.  As co-founder of the ‘Contaminated Land Resource Sharing Group’ he demonstrated that officers can complete ground investigation successfully in-house, increasing the confidence of the team whilst at the same time saving money for the public purse. 

At home, he converted his bicycle to electric pedal assist so that – for the same investment of effort – greater distances can be explored and commuting times made more predictable.  He recently became the 31,057th person to achieve ‘Carbon Literacy Project’ accreditation

A chartered contaminated land practitioner with 16 years’ experience working in environmental contracting and consultancy. Duncan specialises in contaminated land investigation, risk assessment, and remediation for a range of clients including local authorities, private developers, utility and infrastructure companies and for the transportation sector.

Duncan leads a team of consultants within Sweco UK across the Edinburgh and Glasgow offices who deliver practicable and cost-effective sustainable solutions in response to contaminated land / environmental challenges.

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 sourcecorrelation indicators.

Fiona 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 & 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 led the preparation of National Planning Frameworks 3 and 4. Prior to that Fiona 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 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.

Pauline was appointed the Chief Executive of DTAS in 2022, and has been on the DTAS board since 2012. She has a background in both social enterprise support, as well as growing a development trust from a single employee to the group of 56 staff it is today.  Pauline has also served as the former chair of the Scottish Community Alliance, Glasgow Empowering Communities Consortium, Total Homes Cooperative and various local and national networks.

David’s main areas of work are on land, housing and place. His remit at the Scottish Land Commission includes work on land assembly, placemaking, and housing land markets.

He has previously worked developing affordable homes for housing associations in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and on the regeneration of a council estate in Edinburgh.

He is a board member of Rural Housing Scotland and was previously on the board of PAS, the
planning and place charity, and a community based housing association in Greenock.

Dr Christine Switzer is a Lecturer in Environmental Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. Broadly, her research interests lie in the areas of contaminant fate, transport, and remediation as well as rehabilitation of post-remediation soils.

She is co-inventor of the patented smouldering remediation process that has been deployed successfully at contaminated sites all over the world. She and her co-inventors were presented with the Lord Ezra Award for innovation in combustion engineering in 2009 and the commercial team was awarded the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists Superior Achievement Award in 2017.  

Laura Tainsh is a partner and head of the environmental team at Davidson Chalmers Stewart LLP. An environmental lawyer with a particular specialism for dealing with the waste and resources sector. Chartered with the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and Vice-Chair of the Scottish Centre Council of CIWM. Law Society of Scotland Accredited Specialist in Environmental Law and an active member of Law Society of Scotland Environmental Law Committee and of the Scottish Committee of the UK Environmental Law Association. Member of the Management Committee of the Resource Management Association Scotland and board member of Circular Communities Scotland.