Research & Innovation Forum Speakers

Dr Juliet Ansell
CEO, Bragato Research Institute

Juliet recently joined BRI as their new CEO and is excited to bring her science and innovation experience to grow the future of the wine industry. Juliet trained at Kings College London and has a PhD from Oxford University. She has lived and worked as a scientist in the UK, Tanzania, The Gambia, and Australia before taking up a role at Plant & Food Research in New Zealand. She was seconded to Zespri in 2014 as Innovation Leader, initially working on human health and nutrition, before taking up the role of Head of Core and Resilience Innovation.

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Hans Loder
Vineyard Manager and Consulting Viticulturist, Penley Estate (AU)

Hans Loder has been based in the Limestone Coast Region of South Australia for over 20 years. His viticultural methodology continually pushes convention, brings technical insights into practice and actively embraces Precision Viticulture, agtech and new technologies while continuing to respect core viticultural principles. In 2021 he was awarded a Wine Australia Nuffield Scholarship to research the topic, “Here come the robots, but what do we do with the data?” The findings of this have improved productivity at Penley, been used to verify sustainable production systems and contributed to sector initiatives more broadly. 

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Jason Cook
Group Winemaker, Indevin

Indevin Group winemaker Jason Cook will discuss their Smart Winery and cloud capabilities that have revolutionised the management of harvest in recent years, including through a democratised platform that enables winery and viticulture crews to see logistics in real-time on mobile devices.

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Prof Wayne Patrick
Professor of Biochemistry, Victoria University of Wellington

A Professor of Biochemistry, Wayne Patrick and his team address fundamental questions about how enzymes have evolved, in order to engineer new ones with improved properties. Enzymes are the most precise tools in a winemaker’s toolkit. The revolution in AI and machine learning has reached enzyme design so now is the time to ask: what would we like enzymes to do for us?

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Dr Hayley Ridgway
Science Group Leader, Plant & Food Research

Hayley leads Plant & Food Research's Plant Protection Systems Group of 25 scientists. Her areas of speciality are the plant microbiome and she has a focus on its relationship with grapevine trunk diseases (GTD). Over the last 26 years, she has published more than 150 research papers with a third of these focussed on the interactions between grapevines and microorganisms.

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Mark Piper
CEO, Plant & Food Research

Mark joined Plant and Food Research in May 2023 after 30 years in the Dairy Industry where he held roles across manufacturing, IT, and Supply Chain as well as 3 years in and then a further 5 years in Chicago where Mark was Regional Director for North America overseeing around $1.8b of activity across multiple countries and customers. Mark returned to NZ in 2016 and in 2017 moved to Palmerston North to lead Fonterra’s innovation, strategy and category marketing. Mark is also Chair of Food HQ, director of Science NZ, director of the Riddet Institute, an adjunct professor in Food Technology at Massey University, and the Chair of Netball Manawatu.

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Dr Alistair Scarfe
Co-Founder and Chief Engineer, Robotics Plus

Alistair has 16 years of experience advancing and commercialising agricultural technologies, blending an entrepreneurial drive with engineering science. Raised in a high-production, science-driven dairy farming environment, Alistair is deeply motivated to innovate practical applications that make a real impact for customers in agriculture. He has led commercial developments across autonomous vehicles, fruit packing/picking robotics, log scanning and crop surveillance systems. He holds a position as an Independent Advisory Panel member for MPI's SFF Futures fund. 

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Dr Darrell Lizamore
Principal Scientist – Grapevine Improvement, Bragato Research Institute

Originally from the Stellenbosch wine region in South Africa, Darrell established BRI’s Lincoln-based Grapevine Improvement Laboratory in 2019. He now leads a brilliant team of scientists working to improve genetic traits associated with resilience, sustainability and profitability of winegrowing in New Zealand across a range of projects. The largest of these, the Sauvignon Blanc Grapevine Improvement Programme, is a 7-year Ministry for Primary Industries/New Zealand Winegrowers partnership that is currently developing New Zealand’s own Sauvignon Blanc clones to increase the resilience of the New Zealand wine industry.

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Dr Ellie Bradley
Postdoctoral Researcher, Bragato Research Institute

Ellie has a BSc, MSc, and PhD at Massey University and has a background in molecular genetics with a focus on plant-associated fungi/oomycetes. Ellie works primarily on the molecular biology aspect of the Tuned Vines project, some of Bragato Research Institute’s most cutting-edge research about how we could use RNA to fight plant pathogens and viruses. The project aims to demonstrate ways to manage grapevines, by turning specific genes ‘on or off’, using a technique that would not be considered genetic modification.

Roadmap to Net Zero 2050

 

Karen Orr
Sector Decarbonisation Programme Advisor, EECA

Karen is a Sector Decarbonisation Advisor at the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, a government agency which supports mobilising New Zealanders in clean and clever energy use. Prior to joining EECA Karen spent five years with Horticulture New Zealand, including a year secondment to MPI. It was in her role working with greenhouse growers using heat to grow their crops that Karen first came across EECA and formed a relationship to drive transformation change at a sectorial level through energy efficiency and a planned transition to lower emission options. 

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Rosie Dodd
Senior Sustainability Specialist, thinkstep-ANZ

Rosie specialises in carbon accounting and nature strategy, and has supported organisations in the wine sector internationally to measure their environmental footprints and explore routes to net zero. Last year, she supported Dr Martens in designing a route to net zero using a circular business model and collaborated with the UK Green Building Council to investigate decarbonisation enablers for the built environment. As the TNFD Lead at thinkstep-anz, she develops strategies to achieve climate- and nature-positive impacts.

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Fabian Yukich
Deputy Chair, New Zealand Winegrowers

Fabian was elected to the New Zealand Winegrowers Board in 2012, has been Deputy Chair since 2020 and chaired the NZW Environment Committee since 2016. Fabian is a recipient of the Sustainability Champion Award at the NZ Sustainable Business Network Awards and led the team at Villa Maria, that won Parliament’s Supreme Green Ribbon Award in 2012. He is also the wine sector representative for the Board of Biogro New Zealand, and the Organic Exporters Association.

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Dr Anita Wreford 
Professor, Lincoln University

Professor Anita Wreford is an applied economist based in the Faculty of Environment, Society and Design at Lincoln University, specialising in adaptation to climate change, with a particular focus on the primary sector.  She is an author on two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and the Australasia chapter of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Anita has worked closely with policymakers both at national level and local government, and conducted climate change adaptation research for both the public and private sectors in New Zealand, as well as in the EU and UK.

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Peter Jones
Director, The Landing

Originally from the Bay of Islands, Peter graduated from Auckland University with a degree in Civil Engineering. After a career in construction project management, he has spent the last 24 years leading the development and ecological restoration works at The Landing, a 400 hectare coastal property not far from where he grew up. Over this time, over 1.3 million native plants have been added to the property, and considerable effort and resources have been put into pest management and promoting biodiversity. Today, The Landing is certified Carbon Positive by Toitu Envirocare.

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Josh Barclay
Sustainability Manager, Whitehaven Wines

After completing a BSc in biology/ecology at Victoria University, Josh went into environmental consultancy.  He spent the next few years of his life working with various NGO’s, Government agencies and small businesses on resource management, statistical analysis, impact assessment and policy development. Early 2020 he moved back to Marlborough and joined Whitehaven as Sustainability Manager, supporting Whitehaven in being a responsible part of the community, and Kaitiaki of the lands they operate on.

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Research & Innovation Forum MC

Emma Jenkins MW

Having completed a BSc (Hons) in Anatomy and Structural Biology, Emma decided a more sociable career was in order and instead pursued her passion for wine. Emma has worked in fine wine retail, holds a diploma in winemaking and viticulture, and in 2011 became New Zealand's ninth Master of Wine. Emma is a freelance wine writer for several trade and general publications and provides consultancy services to a range of industry and corporate entities. In addition, Emma is Research Paper Coordinator for the MW education program, teaches the odd WSET course and judges at local and international competitions.