Our team

Team members

Andy Parker

Chief Executive Officer

Andy has been the main architect of Degrees/the SRM Governance Initiative since its launch in 2010, responsible for the focus on the Global South, the programme of engagement workshops, and the creation of the DECIMALS Fund. His background is in climate policy and he began working on geoengineering in 2008 when he led the production of the Royal Society’s Geoengineering the climate report. He moved into academia to research SRM governance at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam. Andy was a member of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s expert working group on geoengineering and is currently a mentor for the Anant Fellowships for Climate Action and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, UK.

François Pougel

Transition Manager

François is consulting for the Degrees Initiative as transition manager, overseeing the next stages of the initiative’s development as well as its programmes. He has extensive experience in non-profit management, entrepreneurship and corporate sustainability as well as a keen interest in innovative ventures seeking to make a positive impact in the realms of climate or ocean protection. He holds master’s degrees in geopolitics and international relations as well as in ocean and atmospheric science.

Manuela Schipizza Lough

SRMGI secretariat at TWAS

Manuela has an academic background in Languages from the University of Trieste, in Italy. She worked as a trainer for Bank of America Corporate Banking in London, then she moved back to Italy and has been working on international multi-partner projects for 15 years, managing teams that always had a very high scientific profile, such as members from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, the University of Cambridge, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Lund University. Before joining TWAS she had a fellowship at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste (SISSA).

Board of Trustees

Prof. John Shepherd CBE FRS

Chair of the Trustees

John is Degrees’ Chair of Trustees and an Emeritus Professor of Earth System Science at the University of Southampton. He served as Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research from 2001 to 2010 and chaired the Royal Society’s seminal 2009 Geoengineering the climate report. He has been a Co-chair of the initiative since 2010.

Mr Mark Hilton

Honorary Treasurer

Mark is Degrees’ Honorary Treasurer and a Management Consultant. He has over 30 years of experience in strategy, leadership and operations. Mark holds Masters’ degrees in Global Development Management and Accounting and Financial Management, and is also a trustee of the British Institute of Human Rights.

Prof. Saleemul Huq

Trustee

Saleem has been the Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Dhaka since 2009. He has been an IPCC Lead Author multiple times and was a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). In 2019 he was listed as one of the twenty most influential people working on climate change around the world.

Mrs Jackie Kado

Trustee

Jackie is the Executive Director of the Network of African Science Academies which she helped found in 2001. She specialises in project planning and management for policy interventions and also trains on good financial management for research and development projects. She serves as a member of several committees in Kenya and internationally.

Mr Oliver Morton

Trustee

Oliver is a senior editor at The Economist. As a science writer he has covered SRM for over a decade, including as the author of the 2016 book The Planet Remade. He has extensive experience as an advisory board member, is an Honorary Professor at University College London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.