Professor Sir Charles Godfray
Academic subject(s):
Sir Charles is a population biologist whose work spans ecology, evolution and epidemiology. Through his work on the health, environmental and economic consequences of food policies he has had a major impact on future thinking about global food security. His research on insect population dynamics has been extremely influential in understanding insect population control, including in the biological control of agricultural pests and the genetic control of malaria and dengue vectors.
Sir Charles holds a number of leadership positions across the research and policy arenas. He is part of Target Malaria, a multi-university consortium of researchers working on the control of the mosquitoes that transmit malaria in Africa. He is Chair of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Science Advisory Council, a Trustee Director of Rothamstead Research and a Trustee of the Food Foundation, as well as sitting on a number of other scientific advisory committees. Previous roles include Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, President of the British Ecological Society, and Chair of the Lead Expert Group of the UK Government’s Foresight Project on the Future of Food and Farming.
In 2017 Sir Charles was knighted for services to scientific research and for scientific advice to government.