Extreme Threats to the UK

Fergus Anderson is a Senior Principal in UK Dstl. He has worked in Defence, Security, and Law Enforcement for over 16 years and has expertise in intelligence analysis, counter terrorism, UK operations and civil contingencies. His academic background was in Theology and he has since gone on to study Counter Terrorism and Intelligence and Security. 

He has served in a number of UK Government Departments providing liaison, analysis and advice on a range of security issues. He has set up an innovation hub in the FCO and has been embedded in cross Government assessment teams. He has recent expertise in threat agnostic approaches for countering adversary networks and has served as Head of Strategy in the Home Office.

Fergus is currently seconded to the Operations Directorate in MOD where he serves as Principal Advisor on Influence, Future Threat Understanding and Disruption and specialises in cross Government capabilities. His interests include opportunities and threats from emerging technology.

Dr Attrill completed her Master's degree at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, studying the aurora and radar diagnostics of space plasma in the High Arctic. Her PhD in Solar Physics from UCL included a fellowship at Kyoto University, and role as guest Chief Observer for Hinode's solar spectrometer at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Dr Attrill's post-doctoral appointment at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics focused on signatures of solar eruptions, publishing the first observations from NASA's STEREO satellites and Hinode's X-Ray telescope.

Dr Attrill is a Dstl Research Scholar, a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Bath, and UK lead for the US-UK Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction Cubesat Experiment (CIRCE).

Stu Cutting has been with Lockheed Martin UK for the last 4 years. Prior to this, Stu had a 26 year career in the UK MOD, the last ten years of which included work on the 2006 white paper on the future of the UK deterrent, BMD policy and running the threat assessment and lethality programmes within the UK Missile Defence Centre.

Camille Grand is Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment at NATO since 4 October 2016. He was previously Director of the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique, the leading French think tank on defence and security (from 2008 to 2016). In this capacity, he has also contributed to several senior expert panels for NATO, EU, UN as well as for the French Government. 

He has also held senior positions in the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence. He taught at the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po Paris, at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) and at the French Army Academy. 

Camille has published several books and monographies as well as numerous articles in European and American journals on contemporary strategic issues, focused on European Security and nuclear policy.

James Gray is the Managing Director of Raytheon UK's Cyber & Intelligence organisation - a growing business in cyber security, defence intelligence solutions, information exploitation and space systems. 

James joined Raytheon's Programme Leadership function in 2009 and in 2015 was asked to take a senior Programme Manager role on a new Delivery Framework into UK Government. The framework delivers over 30 programmes of work bringing over 300 qualified staff to the customer's mission and working with 10 subcontractors.  Today, James leads a team of over 150 people delivering revenues of £40m, through the execution of 30+ contracts.

Dr. Gronvall is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has tracked the development of diagnostic and serology tests and wrote about the scientific response to COVID-19 and implications for national and international security. 

Dr. Gronvall is the author of Synthetic Biology: Safety, Security, and Promise (2016). She is also a member of committees that advise the US Secretary of Defense and Director of the National Institutes of Health.

Nick Harris is a Principal Scientist in Dstl. He has worked in Defence and Security for all of his career. Most of this has been in a variety of posts within Dstl (and its preceding organisations), but it has also included postings to NATO, the Royal Military College of Science, and industry. He has developed a broad analytical skill set, and a systems knowledge relating to weapon systems.

His academic background includes a BSc in Mathematics and MSc in Guided Weapon Systems, and his practical background includes analysis, systems studies, technical assurance, and project and staff management. He has recently been working as part of the government’s analytical response to COVID-19, and also leading a multi-facet project within the FTUD Programme. 

His interests include science and technology, science fiction and analysis.

Bryn James is a Senior Fellow in Dstl. He has worked in physical protection and security for most of his career. He has undertaken significant research and development of precise and accurate timing and frequency technology for defence systems; he is the Technical Leader for physical protection research and development, the technical lead for Timing Systems and he is the Head of the Land Integrated Survivability Technology Exploitation Network (LISTEN).

He initiated and led the Parsifal programme for operational support in physical protection for Operation Telic and Operation Herrick. For this he was awarded a MOD Chief Scientific Adviser’s commendation.

Prior to CQC Ilyas was the founding Chairman of The Stephen Hawking Foundation. He is a Fellow of St Edmund’s College at the University of Cambridge, and also the Leader in Residence at the Judge Business School where he was instrumental in the establishment of the highly regarded Accelerate Cambridge programme of investment in early stage Cambridge based technology sector companies.

Ilyas is a regular and extensive writer and commentator on topics relating to quantum computing. 

He has a long-standing interest in the foundations of mathematics and category theory. He is a Life Member of the American Mathematical Society.

Tim has had a long association with air launched weapons which started with an undergraduate apprenticeship with Hunting Engineering in the early 1980s. From there he joined the RAF and, as an Engineering Officer, had a wide range of experiences, from serving at the front line to MOD London. He most enjoyed his 2 flight-test tours with fast jets and weapons at Boscombe Down.

Tim joined QinetiQ in 2002 to continue flight test work in rotary wing and heavy aircraft, moving to Programme Lead for the Brimstone missile system for MOD. Having left QinetiQ in June 2018 he is now Director of an Aerospace Consultancy.

Tim is Chair of the RAeS Weapon Systems and Technology Specialist Group and has supported the Society in many Conferences and Lectures over the years.

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/future-shock-extreme-threats-to-the-uk/

Mr Plant is Director of the Proliferation and Nuclear Policy programme at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Before joining RUSI he worked on arms control issues at UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment, and in various non- and counter-proliferation roles in the Ministry of Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. 

He is a visiting fellow at The Policy Institute at King's College London.

Alexandra specialises in space policy and security in the Military Sciences team at RUSI. Her research covers military space programmes, space warfare, counterspace capabilities, space situational awareness, arms control and the intersection of space and missile defence. She has written articles and research papers for a variety of publications, is a frequent speaker at international conferences and regularly provides expert commentary to the media. 

Alexandra holds an MSc in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck College, University of London, a BA(Hons) in International Studies from the Open University and a BSc(Hons) in Physics with Astronomy from the University of Nottingham.

Tracy is the Group Leader of Weapons Science; she manages a capability with a combined team of scientists, engineers and technicians engaged in a wide range of research and project support activities related to explosives and weapons systems, their development, assurance and qualification.

Tracy has worked in the field of energetic materials for over twenty years technically leading projects covering explosive trains, high explosives, improvised explosives, initiators, electro-explosive devices, and pyrotechnics. She is acknowledged as an expert in initiation systems and the formulation of novel explosive materials, including the development of a reactive fragment based upon hafnium. She also led a research programme investigating the development of a LEEFI detonator, working with other companies such as Thales, Chemring and Cambridge University. 

Tracy was pivotal in developing techniques that have enabled the safe scale-up, manufacture and assessment of improvised explosive materials and devices. As part of her work on improvised explosives Tracy was involved with providing evidence for several high-profile criminal prosecutions demonstrating the initiation of different improvised main charge explosives all using improvised electric detonators.

Mike works as a researcher at Thales UK, investigating and developing new techniques and capabilities for cyber defence, as well as performing security analysis of their platforms and capabilities. 

Current interests include analysis of threat actor psychological goals and motivations, deception, and attack path analysis.

He has worked in boutique consultancies as a penetration tester, forensic analyst, and intrusion detection specialist, and has presented at DEFCON in Las Vegas and other international cyber security conferences.