Here you can find out a little bit more about the people who work for or help to run SGR, where we've come from and the various routes we've taken to get to where we are today. The page is divided into Staff, Directors, and Advisors to the Board of Directors (the latter two groups are voluntary apart from the two ex-officio Directors). Our Patrons are listed separately.

Staff

Stuart Parkinson BEng PhD
Executive Director

Dr Stuart Parkinson began his career studying for a degree in physics and electronic engineering. During an industrial placement, he worked on military engineering projects, and this caused him to question the ethics of his career path. On completing his degree, he changed direction and enrolled for a PhD in mathematical modelling of global climate change at Lancaster University.

After obtaining his doctorate, Stuart then took a postdoctoral post at the Centre for Environmental Strategy (CES) at the University of Surrey, where his research mainly involved work on climate and energy policy, and environmental systems analysis. During this time he became an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and provided advice to UK negotiators to the UN climate change convention. He then spent a year working for Friends of The Earth, co-ordinating research and policy work highlighting the link between environmental problems and social injustice.

Stuart became Executive Director of SGR in 2003, having spent the previous five years volunteering on SGR's National Co-ordinating Committee. He is an author/editor of numerous SGR reports, including Estimating the military’s global greenhouse gas emissions; The environmental impacts of the UK military sector; Under the radar: the carbon footprint of Europe's military sectors; Irresponsible science? How the fossil fuel and arms corporations finance professional engineering and science organisations; UK nuclear weapons: a catastrophe in the making?; Offensive insecurity: the role of science and technology in UK security strategies; Soldiers in the laboratory: military involvement in science and technology - and some alternatives; Science and the corporate agenda: the detrimental effects of commercial influence on science and technology; and Shale gas and fracking: examining the evidence. He is also co-author of a book on the Kyoto Protocol, and an editor of the Responsible Science journal. He has also authored numerous popular science articles and academic papers, and given lectures and presentations to a wide range of audiences.

Stuart is an ex-officio member of SGR's Board of Directors.
 

Andrew Simms MA
Assistant Director

Andrew Simms has a background in political economics and development studies. In addition to post at SGR, he is also co-ordinator of the Rapid Transition Alliance, a co-founder of the New Weather Institute, a research associate at the Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex, and a fellow of the New Economics Foundation (nef), where he was policy director for over a decade. During that time, he founded the nef’s work programme on climate change, energy and interdependence, instigated their ‘Great Transition’ project, and ran work on local economies.

His books include Ecological Debt – on framing the transgression of planetary boundaries – and Tescopoly. He also co-authored The New Economics and Green New Deal. He writes for The Guardian and broadcasts with the BBC World Service and was described by New Scientist as 'a master at joined-up progressive thinking’. His latest book, Cancel the Apocalypse: the New Path to Prosperity, is a manifesto of new economic possibilities.

Andrew is an Advisor to SGR's Board of Directors.

Jan Maskell MA MSc PhD CPsychol
Education Director

Jan Maskell works for SGR on a consultancy basis, co-ordinating SGR's education projects (currently mainly the Closing Loops project). Her biography can be found below.

Jan is also the Vice Chair of SGR's Board of Directors.

Emily Heath BSc PhD
Finance & Membership Manager

Dr. Emily Heath has a BSc in geophysics and a PhD in geochemistry, and has had a varied career including teaching Earth sciences for the Open University and Lancaster University, serving as an elected Green Party member of Lancaster City Council, as a branch secretary of the University and College Union, and as a former non-executive director of a local Community Interest Company that promotes sustainable living. She has been on the steering group of Ethics4USS, which campaigns for ethical investment of university staff pensions, and is chair of North Lancashire Green Party.

Emily is an ex-officio member of SGR's Board of Directors.

Directors

Philip Webber BSc PhD DIC
Chair

Dr Philip Webber has been Chair of SGR since its creation in 1992 (except for 2001-3). Philip began his career as a physicist and spent 12 years as a research scientist at Imperial College, where he gained his PhD in surface science. From 1981, Philip was active in Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (SANA), one of SGR's founder organisations, and during this period co-authored London After the Bomb, and Crisis Over Cruise. He was one of the organisers of the London Nuclear Warfare Tribunal (1983). In 1990 he wrote New Defence Strategies for the 1990's and took the opportunity to work on positive action through work in the environmental field.

He led one of the UK's leading and award-winning environment programmes in Kirklees Council, West Yorkshire up to 2011, where he headed a £6m ($10m) per annum low carbon renewable energy, energy conservation and grants programme. After this he spent a short period as a visiting professor at the University of Leeds working on city-scale low carbon programmes. He was a director of a not-for-profit energy company (Yorkshire Energy Services, CIC) up to 2021.

Philip continues to contribute to material about Trident, new weapons systems, the pervasive influence of the military, and pathways towards a low carbon society.

Jan Maskell MA MSc PhD CPsychol
Vice-chair

Dr Jan Maskell works as a self-employed Chartered Psychologist and is a registered Occupational Psychologist, helping individuals at work, teams and organisations to achieve their potential. She has worked across all sectors and is currently focusing on not-for-profit and ethical organisations through her consultancy. Her work has included: policy development; designing and delivering assessment and development centres; facilitating events; training; management development and coaching; and she teaches part time at a university on postgraduate programmes. Jan has an MA in training and development, an MSc in occupational psychology and her PhD was in educational research.

Jan's early career was in building design and architecture and she worked on several projects including new Crown and County Courts at Oxford, Leeds and Wood Green. She is Chair of the Going Green Working Group which is part of the British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology that investigates the psychology of environmentally sustainable behaviour in the workplace.

Other Directors

Simon Reed BA FIAP FRGS CITP

Simon Reed's professional background is in IT systems development and corporate change management.  He recently completed a masters degree in international relations and peace studies, and has a particular interest in researching, documenting and promoting alternatives to war using evidence-based methods that provide better short term and long term benefits. 

He is also a director of Conscience: Taxes for Peace not War, which campaigns for the right for those who object to war for conscience reasons to not pay for it and for less spending on militarisation and more on peace-building initiatives. 

Simon is also a trustee of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers professional body.

Keith Baker BSc MSc MSc PhD FRSA

Advisors to the Board of Directors

Current Advisors are Andrew Simms and Nico Edwards

Nico Edwards BA MSc

Nico is preparing a postgraduate research project on the Ministry of Defence's Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach, supervised by SGR Patron Professor Anna Stavrianakis. She previously studied at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, gaining expertise in international humanitarian law, political economy and interdisciplinary peace and security studies. 

After graduating in 2020 she undertook a placement with Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND) whilst volunteering for Action on Armed Violence and Campaign Against Arms Trade, carrying out research and advocacy around arms control, disarmament, sustainable development and climate action. She now volunteers as PNND and Youth Fusion Program Officer, coordinating intergenerational cooperation in various disarmament fields.