Council
The PMNHS has a Council made up of volunteers. We meet twice a year to organise the annual conference and field meetings and to discuss Society business. Click on a name to find out a bit more about each of the PMNHS Council members.
Becoming Involved
Joining the Council
If you are interested in joining the Council or wish to become more involved with the Society, you can find out more or contact one of the current Council members.
e: porcupine@pmnhs.co.uk
Find Out More
Honorary Chairperson
Paul Brazier
Paul has been a member of the Society for 20 years and has served on the Porcupine council for several years. During that time, Paul has organised several annual conferences and assisted in preparing the bi-annual bulletin. Paul has been in the marine conservation field for over 30 years, starting as a volunteer and developing his career through working as an intertidal and subtidal biological recorder for the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, later for the Countryside Council for Wales, and then for Natural Resources Wales.
He is involved in Seasearch and the local Wildlife Trust Shoresearch as well as enjoying photography and maintaining a wildlife garden.
Paul is looking forward to the great opportunities that the Porcupine Society provides to discover new knowledge, people and places through the bulletin, conference and field trips, respectively!
e: chairperson@pmnhs.co.uk
Honorary Secretary
Kate Lock
Kate Lock first trained in Fishery Science and worked in this field in Scotland, Alaska and Thailand for 5 years. Following completing a Master’s degree at Herriot Watt University she switched to marine ecology and conservation. She found herself in Pembrokeshire initially working at Dale Fort FSC field centre as a tutor before moving 3 miles down the road to work in a temporary post with the Skomer Marine Nature Reserve – this move turned into 30 years and Kate is still managing the now called ‘Skomer Marine Conservation Zone’. She is happiest out on the field diving, scrambling over rocky shores or mucking about on boats.
Kate has been a keen Seasearch diver and worked as the South and West Wales co-ordinator from 1996 to 2022. She enjoys tutoring and mentoring divers to complete surveys and built up a local community of underwater recorders where everyone is excited to share their photos and records, furthering our knowledge of coastal waters.
e: secretary@pmnhs.co.uk
Honorary Treasurer
David Kipling
Although trained as a zoologist, David spent most of his career in a laboratory as a biomedical research scientist. He is an Honorary Professor at Surrey University, a Member of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, and a Fellow of the Linnean Society. In his spare time, he is an active recreational diver and underwater photographer, with a passion for the waters around Scotland, be it the muddy habitats of sheltered sea lochs or more challenging offshore rocky areas such as Fair Isle and St Kilda. He is an active Seasearch diver, and co-authored “Sea Squirts and Sponges of Britain and Ireland” Seasearch identification guide. He served for many years as a Trustee of the Marine Conservation Society, and is currently a Trustee of Open Seas, a Scotland-focused marine conservation charity.
e: treasurer@pmnhs.co.uk
Honorary Membership Secretary
Jon Moore
Jon Moore is a marine ecologist with over 30 years’ professional research and consultancy experience. He has run his own environmental consultancy business (CALM) since 2001 and is also a partner in the consortium Aquatic Survey & Monitoring Ltd (ASML). He specialises in benthic community surveys (mainly epibiota), design and analysis of monitoring programmes and lots of oil spill related work which takes him to far flung places. Taxonomically he is a generalist, with an interest in the less conspicuous groups of epifauna. He would love to spend all his time in the field studying marine life, but actually spends most of his time in front of a computer analysing, mapping and writing about it. He has been a member of Porcupine since he was indoctrinated by Frank Evans in 1983 and he acted as Treasurer from 1991 to 2018!
e: membership@pmnhs.co.uk
Honorary Editor
Iain Dixon
Iain has worked as a marine ecologist since his first degree in 1977 and has believes that he’s been lucky enough to have had a career based on marine survey and marine life identification and latterly on marine environmental impact assessment (EIA). As well as all the wonderful people Iain has met and worked with, this gave him a love of visiting and revisiting places to go diving and to become immersed in marine environments whether remote or closer to home. Iain therefore enjoys Seasearch trips and is venturing into the world of underwater photography while also trying to keep pace with developments in in-situ marine life identification.
e: editor@pmnhs.co.uk
Honorary Records Convenor
Julia Nunn
Julia Nunn originally trained as a biochemist, but saw the light and became a marine biologist. Julia is now enjoying retirement after working for CEDaR, the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording, at the National Museums Northern Ireland where she was responsible for the marine records for Northern Ireland. Her principal interest is in the biogeography and ecology of Irish and British marine Mollusca, with a new interest in non-indigenous species from all phyla. Julia is an active member of Porcupine Council, having been Executive Officer 1999-2000 and Chair of the Society from 2000-2009.
e: records@pmnhs.co.uk
Honorary Website Officer
Rob Smith
Rob has been diving and photographing for over 50 years. Experience some time with Rob; it is like spending a lovely day with a mate, but you become wiser about diving, photography and life. Rob is now semi-retired from a career in IT and living the life in Argyll and Bute.
e: itsupport@pmnhs.co.uk
Bulletin Layout & Design
Teresa Darbyshire
Teresa Darbyshire is a taxonomist at National Museum Wales in Cardiff specialising in marine bristleworms (polychaetes) as well as looking after the marine invertebrate collections there. She is always happy to talk about worms to anyone interested and willing to listen! Teresa is also an experienced diver and loves being around or under the water looking at the varied marine life (not just worms). Often present during Porcupine field trips, she is happy to discuss fieldwork and methods for collecting and preserving polychaetes.
Teresa works with the Honorary Editor to put together the Porcupine Bulletin and get it out for the enjoyment of all members. Please get in touch particularly if you have any questions about images for articles and how to format them for publication.
e: editor@pmnhs.co.uk
Ordinary Council Members
Winter works for Natural Resources Wales as a Monitoring Analysis Officer mainly dealing with data, however she is on secondment with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee working as a Wales Liaison Officer at the moment. Although her work keeps her firmly in the office, she enjoys exploring around the Gower peninsula and close by Pembrokeshire shores in her spare time..
Craig has worked in a wide variety of marine habitats around the world, both within academic institutions and consultancy in offshore energy industries. Current research topics include the ecological functioning of submarine canyons and cold-water coral reefs, along continental margins.
Craig takes much pleasure in looking and talking about marine invertebrates. He cannot say what his favourite taxa group is but has a fondness for polychaetes and molluscs. There is nothing better than beetling around with a microscope in search of small things in the sediment.
Craig has been a member since his days as a benthic taxonomist and recently joined the council with an aim to strengthen links between the PMNHS, academia and the student body.
Beccy is also a Trustee for MARINELife, volunteer education coordinator for The Seahorse Trust and acts as the independent Chair for the Wye Navigation Advisory Committee.
Please contact Beccy through her website www.beccymacdonald.co.uk
Charlotte has as BA in Geography but no formal marine biological training. Having holidayed on the North Cornish coast since her childhood she is quite at home on the shore. In 2016 she met Matt Slater (Marine Conservation Officer, Cornwall Wildlife Trust). He encouraged her to take part in Shoresearch Week and so began a ‘deep dive’ into all things intertidal.
As well as her own exploration of the shore, Charlotte has completed every CWT Shoresearch Week survey since 2019. In 2025 she recorded the first UK sighting of the Aeolid nudibranch Spurilla neapolitana. She is also an intertidal marine records verifier for ERCCIS (Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly) and was the very surprised recipient of the 2023 Marsh Volunteer Award for Marine Conservation – a national award which recognises the outstanding contribution made by volunteers to marine conservation in the UK.
Participant in South-West Marine Ecosystem – Seashore and Seabed ‘Community of Practice’
She joined PMNHS in January 2023 and became an Ordinary Member of Council in March 2024.
Not a marine biologist, Sarah’s background includes a degree in English literature, and she is a qualified social worker. Her career mainly involved a range of management roles in the children’s charity sector so free time focussed on all things marine was a welcome contrast. Now happily ‘semi-retired’, she and husband David are enjoying life exploring Glasgow.
Sarah is one of the co-authors of the Seasearch guide to Sea squirts and Sponges, and along with David runs identification courses throughout the UK and Ireland. She continues to be an active scuba diver, favouring long, shallow ‘rummage’ dives collecting seaweeds for pressing. She has also recently qualified as a Seasearch Observer Tutor and teaches courses to new Seasearchers, with the aim of sharing her enthusiasm for marine conservation. Sarah was Hon.Secretary between 2020 and 2025, and is now responsible for conference administration.
You can contact the society via email (porcupine@pmnhs.co.uk).
The PMNHS Constitution can be viewed here.