Professor JNR Jeffers
D.Sc. (Lancaster), CStat, CIBiol, FIBiol, CIFor

After training initially as a forester, John Jeffers qualified as a statistician and was, for fifteen years, Principal Statistician in the Forestry Commission Research Branch. In 1968, he was appointed Director of the Nature Conservancy's Merlewood Research Station. In 1973, he became Deputy Director of the newly formed Institute of Terrestrial Ecology of the Natural Environment Research Council, and then its Director and Chief Scientific Officer in 1976.

Since his retirement from the Institute in 1986, he has been appointed as Visiting Professor to the Mathematical Institute of the University of Kent, Visiting Professor to the Industrial Statistics Research Unit of the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering of the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Visiting Professor to the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computing of the University of Greenwich.

He is also currently a Research Fellow of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology of the University of Kent, a consultant to the Unesco Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme and Editor-in-Chief of the Unesco MAB Book Series.

His current research is on expert and knowledge-based systems, and on the development of decision support systems for environmental management, biodiversity, and sustainable development. He retains, however, a strong interest in the application of systems analysis and modelling, particularly to environmental problems. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Environmental Management and of the International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, and a member of the editorial boards of several computer orientated and environmental journals.

He has a long experience of training and practical consultancy, especially in developing countries. He is the author of six books, and of more than 250 papers in scientific journals.