Julie is a chartered engineer and sustainability consultant. Her work has always focused on low and zero carbon strategies and health and wellbeing. She has been involved from early masterplanning stages through to post-occupancy evaluation, as well as policy work. She has worked in most sectors, with a particular interest in housing and heritage buildings.  

She is Head of Net Zero Policy for CIBSE, where she leads the work on climate action. Outside CIBSE, her recent work includes the development of SAP for the Future Homes Standard, the Retrofit Revisit project which evaluates 10 homes subject to deep retrofit a decade ago, and projects on building performance evaluation and building passports in housing. She is co-author of the Good Homes Alliance overheating tool & guidance and of the Woodknowledge Wales Building Performance Evaluation guidance, and author of CIBSE TM40 Health & Wellbeing in Building Services. She is an advisor on the National Trust Historic Environment Group.  

In becoming a trustee, she is selfishly interested to learn a lot about forestry and timber construction. She is also keen to help link policy and practice, and to support everyone working for low-carbon and healthy buildings.

John is Professor of Forest Sciences at Bangor University, the UK’s leading university for forestry. John has spent his whole professional career at Bangor, starting as a specialist in tropical forestry, but now with sustainable management and silviculture of UK woodlands as a major component of his research and teaching. The huge challenges posed by the climate and biodiversity crises are an increasingly dominant focus. He is a section chief editor for the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.

John is a member of the Institute of Chartered Foresters and has recently participated in a number of evidence review, expert group, horizon scan and advisory committee roles. He also brings a breadth of perspectives ranging from his role as Director of Research for the Bangor University college spanning the whole of science and engineering, to that of manager of two small woodlands.

As an ecological scientist, John’s approach is very much based on a whole-systems’ perspective. His work has a strongly applied orientation and he has long been engaged at the interface of science with policy and practice, which he hopes to develop further via membership of the Board of Woodknowledge Wales.

The scope of John’s current research and publications can be summarised as the ecology, management and ecosystem services of forests and agroforestry systems. Key themes include the role in the global carbon cycle of forests and their products, climate change impact on forests and coral reefs, forest biodiversity conservation at species, site and landscape scales, including the impact of invasive species and pathogens, drivers of forest degradation, and the ecological basis of forest restoration and sustainable forest management. Research on agroforestry includes its role in livelihoods and mitigating deforestation and climate change.

Shayne has more than 20 years’ experience in housing and regeneration, working in both England and Wales.

After seven years in the private sector, Shayne came in to social housing working for Gloucester City Council and then for the Audit Commission managing their housing work in the South West of England.

As Deputy Chief Executive / Commercial Director of Wales and West Housing Association, Shayne is responsible for Development, Care & Support, PR & marketing, and Systems Thinking. In addition Shayne is chair of Shelter Cymru and Chair of Woodknowledge Wales.

Rachel is currently the Head of Poverty Prevention for the City and County of Swansea. Prior to this, Rachel worked with housing associations and construction companies to explore the potential for the use of Welsh timber in regeneration projects.

Through her company SOSAVI, Rachel worked for multiple clients across regeneration and business service industries to develop innovative projects, deliver contracts and achieve job creation targets, securing funds from the EU, Government, Sector Skills Councils, industry and the 3rd sector. Rachel has also worked with the CITB to create shared apprenticeships schemes.

Rachel will help us to better understand and catalyse the social value that can flow from the expansion of forestry and forest industries in Wales.

Jasper has been in partnership with his brother, Ben Meade, since 1993, founding Pen Y Coed Construction and Insulation Ltd.

His 25 years of experience working in the sustainable building industry and specialism in timber frame systems using Warmcel cellulose fibre insulation and other blown fibre insulation products, has developed his company’s extensive knowledge in this field.  Through embedded learning processes, continual improvements on design and quality building detailing, ensure that their buildings standards and performances reach best possible values.

One of Jaspers strengths is creating and maintaining a network of industry experts to work with. He believes his own team are vital to the business and is proud of PYC’s ‘Gold Investors’ in People Award; the incorporation of continuing training, is his companies’ key to innovation and sustainability in the industry. He regularly attends Passivhaus seminars and runs ongoing successful architect CPD seminar events around the country.

His willingness to serve on the Wood knowledge Wales board  demonstrates his passion for the sustainable of the construction Industry.

Doug grew up in Mid Wales, surrounded by trees.

He has worked and studied internationally, the experience of which has taught him the value of designing sustainable buildings that not only look and feel inspiring but work as practical and uplifting solutions to living well.

Doug is committed to exploring the untapped potential of Welsh timber and for Wales to become a world leader in delivering exemplary architectural and structural solutions using home grown materials. Since 2001 Doug has been Director of Hughes Architects which now has offices in Cardiff as well as in Powys and Ceredigion.