Guest Speaker Biography

Professor Maggie Gill, OBE, FRSE

Professor Maggie Gill, OBE, FRSE is an emeritus Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen.

From 2014 to 2019 Maggie was Chair of the Independent Science and Partnership Council of the CGIAR, a consortium of international agricultural research centres, and chaired an EU Think Tank for the project Fit4Food 2030 from 2017 to 2020 She currently chairs the Science Advisory Panel of the New Zealand Government’s Our Land and Water National Challenge and Sustainable Agriculture and Food Strategy Advisory Panel of UKRI- BBSRC.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

Maggie was Chief Scientific Advisor for the Environment and Rural Affairs in the Scottish Government from 2006 to 2011, after serving as CEO and Research Director of the Macaulay Institute, one of the predecessors of the James Hutton Institute. She went to the Macaulay after four years as CEO of Natural Resources International Ltd, a company owned by four universities which was spun out of the privatisation of the Natural Resources Institute, originally part of the UK Government Overseas Development Administration.

Maggie has held a number of other titles, including chair of the Scottish Science Advisory Council, and was awarded the OBE in 2011 for services to science. Over the years she has been a researcher, managed research programmes and advised governments on research, broadening her expertise to the interactions between food systems, society and the environment. 

Passionate about bringing the policy and science communities closer together to help accelerate the use of knowledge in helping to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals, Maggie has a degree in Agricultural Science from Edinburgh University and a PhD in sheep nutrition from Massey University, New Zealand.