Committee members

Dr Maureen Edmondson is Chair of the Northern Ireland Food Advisory Committee. Maureen has a background in Scientific Affairs and Food Science that has included positions in corporate, not-for-profit, academic, and government settings. For twenty years Maureen worked for Mars Incorporated, serving until 2000 on the corporate staff where she was responsible for International Scientific Affairs. She initiated scientific programmes in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Africa with a multinational team of colleagues and influential scientific professionals. She managed the company’s input to European and international technical food legislation and nutrition policy. She was Vice Chairman of the Industry Council for Development, and was active in the International Life Sciences Institute, and several other European trade, scientific, and professional associations.

Maureen earned her bachelors in food science and her Ph.D. in agricultural and food bacteriology from Queens University of Belfast and is a Fellow of both the Institute and International Academy of Food Science and Technology and Honorary Fellow of the European College of Sports Sciences. In addition to her corporate experience, she is a researcher, university lecturer, and has held posts on the UK government Food Advisory Committee. She served as Vice Chairman of the Northern Ireland Post Primary Education Review, on the governing council of Ulster University where she is a visiting professor for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, was a Non-Executive Director of the Northern Ireland Office and was Vice Chairman of the Trinity Forum in Europe. She served on the leader group for Food Foresight in Northern Ireland, was the NI Member of Postwatch National Council and chaired Postwatch NI. In 2008 Maureen was appointed as the NI member of the Communications Consumer Panel (OFCOM).

Maureen is motivated by a desire to see science and sense pervade public policy on food and health. She is convinced that this serves all parties best, be they consumer, producer or policy maker. At the end of the day we are all consumers since we all eat and want to benefit from the great privilege of a safe and varied food supply.

Mr Tony McCusker was born and educated in Portadown, and served in a number of Government Departments including the former Northern Ireland Assembly and the Departments of Health and Education and Environment. He has worked with the Cultural Traditions Group and was one of the founding members of the Central Community Relations Unit before joining Making Belfast Work in 1993. As Director of Making Belfast Work, Tony McCusker led a Government initiative on urban regeneration tasked with the economic, social and environmental regeneration of the most disadvantaged parts of Belfast.

In 1997/98 he was Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Environment with policy responsibility for a wide range of public services including Water, Transport issues, Road Safety and the Fire Authority.

In February 1998 he was appointed as Director (Political Co-Ordination and Support) in Central Secretariat which supported the work of Northern Ireland Departments and its links with the Northern Ireland Office. He was involved in the negotiations to establish the new devolved administration in Northern Ireland and implementing other elements of the Good Friday Agreement.

He was Director in the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister with responsibility for the Executive Secretariat and Corporate Services from December 1999 to January 2002.

He joined the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development as Deputy Secretary on 14 January 2002 and was responsibile for the Department’s Policy Group. He led the 2003 Common Agriculture Policy negotiations for NI and represented DARD regularly at UK and EU strategy meetings on agri-food, rural issues, the environment and fisheries.

Tony retired from the Northern Ireland Civil Service on 30 August 2005 and since then has undertaken a wide range of advisory work in Northern Ireland and in several European countries. He is also the Chairman of the NI Community Relations Council and the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland.

Dorothy Black graduated with a teaching degree form Liverpool University, has a Masters in Education from QUB and currently lecturers in the School of Education, University of Ulster and is Course Director of the Post Graduate Certificate in Education for Home Economics. Other duties include co-ordinating and delivering continuing professional development Masters’ courses for teachers.

In 2002 she was appointed as a council member of the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum and Assessment, (CCEA) and has been engaged in review, development and implementation of the revised NI curriculum designed to meet the changing needs of Northern Ireland society and its young people. She has sat on a number of subject and qualification working groups with responsibility for developing examination specifications and programmes for teaching food and consumer issues in the curriculum.

She is a member of the General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland which ensures that professional standards of teacher competency are maintained. From 2003-2005 she was chairperson of the Association of Teachers of Home Economics (ATHE) and continues to edit the association’s quarterly newsletter for Home Economics teachers. She is also a member of the International Federation for Home Economists and has presented papers at its conferences.

Research interests include investigating how adolescents perceive food risk and working with primary schools in Northern and Southern Ireland to develop a food education and assessment process.

Other interests include promoting community relations with post primary schools, through prejudice reduction and conflict resolution workshops and developing transatlantic links with schools and churches in Delaware USA.

David Mark is a Food technologist. His early career was in the Dairy Industry and after spending time in the catering sector as a McDonalds Restaurant franchisee he moved back to the Food Processing industry initially within the Egg Products sector and subsequently with the O'Kane Poultry Group - Ballymena involved with primary and further chicken and turkey processing, working in close contact with most of the major UK retail multiples. Currently he is Commercial Director of Countryside Services Ltd, a subsidiary of the Ulster Farmers Union, a business centred on providing commercial services to farmers, primary producers and the agri-food sector.

Barbara Livingstone has been a member of staff of the University of Ulster since 1984 and before that was a member of staff of the Ulster Polytechnic for 11 years. In 2001 she was appointed Professor of Human Nutrition and her research interests include:

• Food and nutrient intakes in free-living populations/development of evidence based dietary guidelines for healthy eating
• Validation of dietary survey methodologies
• Dietary and lifestyle risk factors for obesity in children and adolescents
• Mechanisms of control of appetite, satiety and food intake
• Development of intervention strategies for the prevention of obesity in children and adolescents

She has published over 90 research papers and actively collaborates with a number of national and international centres of excellence in research. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of Safefood (Ireland) and is a Scientific Governor of the British Nutrition Foundation.

Professor John Moore is a Clinical Microbiologist at the Northern Ireland Public Health Laboratory, Department of Bacteriology, Belfast City Hospital and is state-registered with the Health Professions Council, London. John, who in his early years, was educated at Banbridge Academy, graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Science, The Queen’s University of Belfast, with both a BSc (Hons) and PhD degree.

Previously, John worked in the food industry and completed his management training with Unilever PLC., in England. Scientifically, he has approximately 300 peer-reviewed publications in learned scientific and medical journals, as well having co-edited a book and several other book chapters, and is an Editor of the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Journal, Clinical Microbiology & Infection, and has recently joined the Editorial Board of the Ulster Medical Journal.

Presently, he is Honorary Visiting Professor in Clinical Microbiology, in the School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster, with whom he collaborates closely. He has been and currently is academic supervisor to several PhD and MSc students, who are studying various aspects of clinical microbiology. In addition, he is a member of the HPSS Infectious Diseases-Recognised Research Group (ID-RRG), a member of the Veterinary and Scientific Advisory Board, The Irish Equine Foundation, Co. Kildare and an invited member of the Health Protection Agency (London) Advisory Committee on Molecular Diagnostics. He is also an examiner for the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health (London), Chairman of the Northern Ireland Microbiology Discussion Group and co-ordinator of the newly established all-island Clinical Mycology Network and has acted as an External Examiner for several universities throughout the British Isles.

He has several internationally active collaborations in the USA, China and Japan, as well as collaborating closely with several groups in Sligo, Galway and Dublin. His scientific research interests include Campylobacter and Cryptosporidium, as well as the molecular diagnosis of culture-negative infections, including endocarditis, meningitis and bacteraemia in cancer patients, as well as Pseudomonas infection in patients with cystic fibrosis. John, who lives outside Ballymena, Co. Antrim is married with two children and in his spare time, enjoys fly-fishing for trout and salmon, as well as playing the trumpet.

Michael Walker lives in Newtownabbey. His academic background is in chemistry and the analysis of food, drugs and water. He is a self-employed consultant on food, drugs, air pollution and water issues with attendant civil and criminal litigation, a board member of Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (a DARD non-departmental public body), and external examiner for Dublin Institute of Technology's BSc in Forensic and Environmental Science.

Mr Walker served as Public Analyst in Northern Ireland (1986-2004) and as Chief Executive of Forensic Science Northern Ireland between 2004 and 2006. He is a former board member of the Consumer Council, the Food Standards Agency, and the Food Safety Promotion Board. He was chair of the Food Standards Agency's NI Advisory Committee, 2000- 2004. His personal interests are hillwalking, climbing, food and wine.

Alan graduated from Queens University Belfast with a degree in Food Science. He spent nearly 20 years of his career with Pritchitt Foods of Newtownards, rising to the position of Group Operations & Technical Director. Following a restructuring of the family owned company he moved to England in 1998 to take up the post of Technical Director with Stella Products based in Liverpool. In this role he led the development of many well known brands in the frozen confectionery range.
Alan moved to the Longslow Food Group in 2003 as Operations Director with responsibility for several production sites throughout the UK, primarily in Dairy and Meat processing. In 2004 he assumed the Joint Managing Director position with Longslow.

Alan returned to Northern Ireland in 2004 to get married and take up the post of Chief Executive at W.D.Irwins of Portadown, Northern Irelands largest independent Bakery. He took redundancy from Irwin’s in 2006 to facilitate an internal Family owner restructuring.
His present interests include Rugby, golf, soccer, food and wine.

David McCleery holds the position of Chief Specialist Microbiologist with safefood. In this role he provides scientific and technical advice to safefood and relevant partners, plays a key role in developing safefood’s research portfolio and building scientific cooperative mechanisms, in relation to microbiology, on the island of Ireland.

Originally From Dundonald, Co Down, David was educated at Queen’s University Belfast and holds a BSc in Food Science, a PhD in Food Microbiology, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Communication. He joined safefood from a joint appointment with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Northern Ireland and Queen’s University Belfast, where he was a Project Leader in Food Microbiology and a Lecturer in the Department of Food Science. He has also worked as a Research Fellow in the Department of Veterinary Science at Queen’s, and held the positions of Lecturer in Communication and Food Technologist for the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise at Loughry Campus. David sits on the Approvals Board of EIQA Hygiene Mark.

In his spare time, David is a keen gardener and enjoys performing choral music