CABI Chief Scientist gets award from expert organization

Dr Matthew Cock, CABI’s Chief Scientist, has been elected as an honorary member of the International Organization of Biological Control (IOBC) Global for playing an important role in biological control and in the organization’s history. Matthew Cock, who’s been with CABI for nearly 35 years, has worked in the area of biological control and integrated pest management (IPM) for much of this time, more recently focusing on the implications of the Convention on Biological Diversity and climate change for biological control.

Following his appointment as Chief Scientist in 2009, he joined the IOBC Global Commission on Biological Control and Access & Benefit Sharing, leading the preparation of the Commission’s report on biological control and access & benefit sharing to the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) of FAO, possibly influencing the negotiations for the Nagoya Protocol on Access & Benefit Sharing in 2010.

Dr Matthew Cock subsequently led another study for CGRFA on climate change and invertebrates important to agriculture, and is currently getting the BIOCAT database of insect introductions for the biological control of insects updated and available online.

On hearing he had received the award, Dr Matthew Cock said: “I’ve spent much of my career working on biological control, so I’m delighted to receive this award from the global professional body for the science and practice of biological control. Several scientists were honoured, and I was very pleased to see that one of these was my former CABI colleague Jeff Waage, with whom I worked for more than 10 years, promoting biological control globally”.
 

In all, 10 distinguished scientists were granted the life-long award in 2012 including our Chief Scientist and another previous employee – Prof Dr J. K. Waage. The committee of IOBC elected the new honorary members during the four-yearly IOBC General Assembly in Daegu, South Korea, during the International Congress of Entomology 2012. Dr Matthew Cock will receive the "honorary membership diploma" early in 2013.