BGS Senior Leadership Team
Prof. John Ludden — Executive Director
Before taking the post of Executive Director at the BGS, John was Director of the Earth Sciences Division at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He has also served as Director of Research for the CNRS in Nancy, France, where he also taught at the French National School of Geology (ENSG-Nancy). Prior to this, Professor Ludden worked at the University of Montreal, Columbia University and with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the USA. He holds a doctorate in Igneous Petrology from the University of Manchester, UK. Professor Ludden is currently Past-President of the European Geosciences Union and a visiting professor at Oxford and Leicester universities.
Prof. Denis Peach — Chief Scientist
Before his appointment as Chief Scientist, Denis spent over nine years as the Manager of the BGS Groundwater Programme, based at Wallingford. He is a hydrogeologist with very broad interests in the area of environment geoscience, including shallow geophysics, hydrogeochemistry, engineering geology and numerical modelling. He has 35 years' experience which includes work for a UK water authority, overseas work in tropical hydrogeological environments and work for international consultants in arid zone hydrogeology. His particular scientific interests have included the development of groundwater modelling in BGS. Denis has a track record of collaborating with several universities and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology across the disciplines in integrated catchment science. He is an Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham and has been a Vice President of the Geological Society of London.
Ian Jackson — Chief of Operations
Between 2000 and 2007, Ian was Director of Information for the BGS. He began his career in 1972 on mineral assessment programmes in the UK and overseas and moved in the early 1980s to work as a field geologist in the north-east England coalfield. Innovative use of early computing systems to handle the large geological datasets led to Ian's appointment as the manager of a corporate project to introduce digital mapping across BGS and subsequently produce the GB national geological map and geohazard digital databases, and operational 3D modelling and digital workflows in BGS. A dominant theme in his career is the wider exploitation of geoscience data for societal benefit in the UK and internationally as an executive or council member of several international initiatives (IGC, EC INSPIRE, IAMG and OneGeology).
Dr Andy Howard — Director of Science Programmes
From 2001, Andy managed the SIGMA project, to develop and deploy digital mapping systems in BGS survey programmes. Since 2005, he has managed the National Geoscience Framework, a programme to implement a national, digital 3D knowledge base of the United Kingdom. Andy joined BGS with a PhD in Jurassic sedimentology and palaeobiology in 1984, after working for Norsk Hydro in Bergen and Stavanger. He has specialised in urban environmental geology and coalfields, working on mapping projects in the Midlands and northern England. He was District Geologist in the East Midlands from 1991 to 95 and Lancashire from 1997 to 2001, and from 1993 to 2000 was Secretary of the IUGS International Working Group on Urban Geology. Andy was the first Secretary of the BGS Programme Board from 1989 to 91, and rejoined the BGS Cental Directorate in 1996 to manage the BGS contribuion to the Government's Prior Options Review of the governance of all the UK's research establishments.
Dr Richard Hughes — Director of Information & Knowledge Exchange
Richard was appointed Director of Information and Knowledge Transfer in November 2007 after a period as Head of the BGS's Information Delivery programme, with responsibility for knowledge transfer and the exploitation of the BGS's digital data assets. Richard's background is in geosciences. He holds a BSc from the University of Wales, Cardiff, a PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and is a Chartered Geologist. The early parts of his career with the BGS were spent working on regional geoscience survey projects in various parts of England, Wales and Scotland. He has also lived and worked in the Ecuadorian Andes, and in Canada. Between 2001 and 2005 Richard worked on geoscience project development and management in Europe, the Middle East and many parts of Africa.
David Ovadia — Director of Resources and Business
David Ovadia is the Resources and Business Director for BGS, which includes lead responsibility for international relations. He joined the British Geological Survey in 1991 and was appointed to the post of Head of International in 2000. He has worked on BGS projects in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Papua New Guinea. He is currently the NERC nominee non-executive director of the Rainbow Seed Fund and is a Chartered Engineer. He graduated in geology and physics from the University of Liverpool and did postgraduate research at the University of Birmingham before joining the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, now the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, in 1978. He worked on air-sea interaction numerical modelling for a number of years and, in 1987, he was appointed to manage NERC's corporate computer services. During the 1980s and1990s he held part time lecturing posts at the Open University and the University of Nottingham, where he was also an external examiner.
John Murray — Director of Administration & Finance
John rejoined BGS as Director of Administration in 2008. He has undertaken a number of NERC-wide corporate roles in recent years including chairing the Engineering and Technical Merit Promotion Panel and as Senior Responsible Officer for the NERC Resource Management Software project in Swindon, POL and CEH. John began his NERC career in Keyworth in 1981 working initially in the Personnel group assisting staff transferring in from sites in London and Leeds. He left BGS in 1988 and has worked within the NERC marine science community, firstly as Head of Finance at the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences Deacon Laboratory in Surrey and subsequently at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory on Merseyside and the Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory near Oban (now SAMS). In 1995 John transferred to POL as Head of Administration and combined this with an administrative Directorate role within the NERC Centre for Coastal and Marine Sciences. During 2002-04, John was a project manager for the relocation of POL from the Wirral to a new building on the University of Liverpool campus.
