Academic and Professional Background

• Background:

  PhD

  FRSNZ

  FNZIAHS

  FRES

• Personal Resume:

  Dr Stephen Goldson is widely recognised as a leader in his areas of expertise - pest management, biosecurity and science advocacy. He is the Executive Director of B3, the multi-partner, cooperative science programme that researches ways to reduce the entry and establishment of new pests in New Zealand and also Strategy Advisor to the Office of the Prime Minister's Science Committee.

  He has led programmes to explore mechanisms of biological suppression for three severe pasture pests in New Zealand - the clover root weevil (Sitona lepidus), Argentine stem weevil (Listronotus bonariensis) and the lucerne weevil (Sitona discoideus). In doing so, he identified the critical importance of subspecies in biological control.

  Stephen's fundamental research into insect behaviour and the ecological and genetic components of pest suppression have informed crop management generally.

  He has authored more than 150 papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings. At the same time, Stephen has been highly influential in the development of sensor technologies to improve New Zealand's border biosecurity.

  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science which awarded him the prestigious Jubilee Medal in 2007. That year he also won the Agriculture and Environment Category of the Bayer Innovators Awards. A Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London, Stephen was Advisor to New Zealand's Minister of Research, Science and Technology from 1996 to 1997 and President of the New Zealand Plant Protection Society from 2001 to 2003.