Professor Mary Brennan completed her Bachelor of Agricultural and Food Engineering (BE) degree at University College Dublin (Ireland) in 1998, her MSc. in International Agricultural and Food Marketing from Newcastle University (UK) in 1999 and her PhD (by published work) from Newcastle University (UK) in 2011. Since September 1999, she held a series of academic positions at Newcastle University before moving to University of Edinburgh Business School in Nov 2013 where she has been Head of the Marketing Group (2015-2019), is currently Director of UG Programmes (2017-current) and Acting Deputy Dean (20/21) and was promoted in 2017 to a Personal Chair in Food Marketing and Society.

Mary adopts an interdisciplinary, systems based approach to her research drawing on, and working with, many different disciplines to investigate complex food policy challenges. She explores the complex, dynamic, unpredictable and often unstable relationships people have with food, how these shape everyday food practices, underpin contemporary food policy challenges and are often considered resistant to change.

She complements her theoretical and conceptual contributions to food marketing and society with creative interdisciplinary collaborations and innovative mixed method research offering new techniques and insights into everyday food practices, especially those considered “less than ideal” and often practiced behind closed, domestic and school/workplace doors (i.e. eating food past its use-by date; throwing out edible food; under-cooking of meat; over-consumption of food; plate waste in schools).

Her research also explores the concept of sustainable food in terms of production, procurement and consumption with specific focus on school food systems (EU H2020 funded Strength 2 Food project).

She is a founding and active member of FRIED, the Food Researchers in Edinburgh Network and in September 2018 was appointed Chair of the Scottish Food Coalition (SFC), a coalition of NGO, academic and other organisations who are campaigning for a better, healthier, more sustainable and just food system in Scotland and the introduction of a new Good Food Nation Bill in Scotland. As part of three recent EU funded projects and with her work with the SFC, she have extensive experience in designing and undertaking stakeholder consultations from across an array of topics from pesticide risk exposure in Ag and Food; GM Animals, School Food and the proposed new Good Food Nation Bill in Scotland.

Kathryn Walsh is currently the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the National Youth Council of Ireland, the representative body for voluntary youth organisations in Ireland.

Kathryn was a Senator for 5 years from 2011-2016 and has also worked in a variety of advisory roles in the Oireachtas. She was a policy advisor on health during some of the legislative passage of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act and continued advocacy on this in future roles. Prior to joining NYCI, she was a policy manager in the Irish Heart Foundation, leading on policy and legislative advocacy, securing important amendments to legislation including the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022.

She is a policy and politics graduate with a Masters in Public Policy and MEconSc in European Economic and Public Affairs. Her research interests are the commercial determinants of health and corporate political activity of industry in health policy.

Dr Muiris O’Ceidigh is the CEO of the National Milk Agency. He has specialist expertise in Regulation of Professions and Corporate Governance. Muiris is a member of the Veterinary Council of Ireland and is formerly a Public Interest Director on the Medical Science Registration Board, and a former Director of the Irish Red Cross. Currently a member of the Property Services Regulation Authority, he recently was appointed to the board of the Faculty of Pathology of the Royal College of Physicians. Muiris was appointed a Director of the Economic Research Institute of Northern Ireland by the UK government and the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister.

Muiris has studied at Cambridge and Oxford University and is a business mentor on Corporate Governance and Regulation at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainable leadership at Cambridge University. Muiris is a former winner of the Ledwidge International Poetry Prize, and is also a Director of the Irish Architecture Foundation and a member of Dalkey Writers Workshop.

Muiris is Chairman of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and has researched Civil & Human Rights and the media. He is an Honorary Patron of Jeanie Johnston Education Foundation. He has expertise in financial technology and real estate technology (PROPTECH) having successfully undertaken the FINTECH programme at Oxford University.

Aoife is the Senior Regulatory Affairs Executive for Food Drink Ireland (FDI), which is part of Ibec, the group that represents Irish business. FDI represents home grown and international manufacturers and suppliers across the food and drink sector and is the leading voice for Ireland’s most important indigenous industry. Since 2016, Aoife has tracked and influenced European and national regulatory proposals, keeping FDI members informed and helping them understand how these changes will affect their operations. Her remit encompasses food safety and food-related sustainability regulations. Aoife graduated with an MSc in International Marketing Practice from the highly competitive Bord Bia Marketing Fellowship. She holds a degree in Electronic Engineering, an MSc in Science Communication and has recently completed an MSc in Food Regulatory Affairs.

Sinéad Furey is a Senior Lecturer on the Food Business and Innovation undergraduate degree programme in Ulster University Business School, lecturing on food and consumer policy and legislation including active citizenship and sustainability.

Her research interests are food insecurity and food policy. Her food insecurity research focuses on definition and measurement, and developing an associated risk indicator to map under-served areas with respect to food access and co-existing poverties. She is working with local councils to co-design food access interventions.

In other food affordability research, she led an investigation of the types of food and drink on price promotion in retail outlets in the Republic of Ireland - the first island of Ireland research to consider consumers’ awareness of, attitudes towards, and behaviours around retail food promotions.

Dr Martin Rose worked for over 30 years as a UK government scientist with a focus on the application of analytical chemistry to studies on food safety, food control and regulation for contaminants in food. He has worked on a number of projects with a focus on bringing together natural scientists with social scientists, for example to assess the economic cost of food incidents or to assess consumer behaviour with respect to food safety issues. He is a former head of UK National Reference Laboratory for chemical contaminants in food.

Martin is a former member of the EFSA CONTAM and ANS Panels and is a member of several EFSA working groups. He is a member of the UK expert committee on pesticides and was until June 2025 a member of the UK Government Scientific Advisory Committee Expert Group on Additives, Enzymes and other Regulated Products (part of Committee on Toxicity).

Since 2017, Martin has been working as an independent science consultant, for organisations including Fera Science Ltd., United Nations (FAO and ITC), Innovate UK on publicly funded research projects, risk assessment activities, research project monitoring and evaluation, regulatory impact assessment and supporting activities to implement food control systems in less developed countries.

Dr Nazih Eldin was born in Israel into a Palestinian family. He attended municipal schools before completing his medical studies at the Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. As a junior doctor he worked in Israel, Ireland and England. In 1987 he decided to move into Public Health where one of his researches was into behavioural change which took him into his specialty: Health Promotion. Following an MSc in Health Promotion from King’s College London he worked at all levels from a District Health Promotion Officer to Head of Health Promotion for Dublin and the North East. He also was the Director of the Irish Network of Health Promoting Hospitals and HSE Lead on Obesity. He spent the last three years as the National Obesity Advisor at the Department of Health.

Dr Eldin has been extensively published. His papers covered all disciplines of health promotion and disease prevention. These included topics such as smoking, accident prevention, HIV & Aids, Road Traffic Accidents, Childhood Obesity Surveillance, European Survey of Childhood Overweight and Obesity, Drug Prevention etc. Examples of his achievements are: UK National Award for Health Alliances (1995), Crystal Clear Health Literacy Award (2011), E-Government Awards (overall and innovations awards - 2011) and Paul Harris Award from Rotary for charitable work. Dr Eldin is married to Mary and together they have three children: Samir, Yousef and Soraya.

Details to come.

Anne is a Lecturer in Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in the Ryan Institute at the University of Galway. Her interests are in sustainable food systems that support nutrition security for all, empowerment of citizens in food systems transformation, and science communication for citizens and political decision makers. Anne has been an academic researcher in international nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and King’s College London, and worked in private sector science communication roles at The Dairy Council for Great Britain, and as the launch Chief Editor of Nature Food.

Nuala Collins is an experienced nutrition and food regulatory professional with over 30 years in the field. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin with a BSc in Human Nutrition, she has further expertise in Dietetics and Nutrition from TU Dublin, an MSc in Food Regulatory Affairs from UCD and Ulster University, a Diploma in Innovation for Sustainability from UCD and a Diploma in Public Relations. Her diverse career spans both clinical and regulatory settings, beginning with clinical dietetics at the Erne Hospital in Fermanagh and St James Hospital in Dublin. She later expanded her knowledge and skills by working with prominent organisations, including the National Dairy Council, Nestlé, and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.
Nuala's professional interests centre around obesity management and the food environment, nutrition and health claims on food, food reformulation, food regulation, and sustainable dietary practices. Her additional training in media skills, sports dietetics, allergy management, food safety, negotiation skills, and leadership complements her comprehensive approach to nutrition and food science.

Fiona is an Assistant Professor in the School of Agriculture and Food Science at University College Dublin, where she is the Director of the Food, Nutrition and Health post graduate programmes. Fiona is also the Director of Executive Education in the school and so is very active in her interactions with industry for education purposes.  Fiona teaches Food Policy and Regulatory Affairs and her research interests lie in the regulation of the food supply coupled with consumer attitudes and understanding in this field. Fiona worked for Food for Health Ireland, based in UCD, for 8 years in the role of Regulatory Affairs Manager and in 2010, she completed her PhD, where she studied nutrition and health claims on the Irish marketplace. Prior to moving to UCD in 2007 to commence her PhD, Fiona held the position of Regulatory Affairs Manager for Food and Drink Ireland (FDI) in IBEC and prior to that, she was a Technical Executive in the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.