Company Founders
Lord Krebs - Chairman
The Lord Krebs Kt, MA, DPhil, FRS, FMedSci, Hon DSc
Principal of Jesus College, University of Oxford
Academic Career
John completed his undergraduate degree in Zoology (1966) and DPhil (1970) at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. After a year as a Departmental Demonstrator in Ornithology at Oxford he moved to the University of British Columbia as an Assistant Professor of Ecology (1970-73). John then spent a period at the University College of North Wales in Bangor as lecturer in Zoology (1973-75) before returning to Oxford as University Lecturer in Zoology in the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology. John was a Fellow of Wolfson College until 1981, when he became EP Abraham Fellow of Pembroke College. Between 1988 and 2005 he was a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford. From 1994 to 1999 John was Chief Executive of the Natural Environment Research Council and was Chairman of the UK Food Standards Agency between 2000 and 2005. In 2005 he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.
In recent years John has worked at the interface between science and policy and is currently chairing an enquiry into the ethics of public health for the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. He also serves on the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 and in 2007 will become Chairman of the National Network of Science Learning Centres.
Click here for a selected list of some of John’s many accomplishments.
Professor Alex Kacelnik - Director
Lic. Biol, D. Phil (Oxon)
Professor of Behavioural Ecology, Oxford University
EP Abraham Research Fellow, Pembroke College, Oxford
Academic Career
Alex completed his undergraduate degree in Zoology (1969) in Buenos Aires University and his DPhil (1979) at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. After two years as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the University of Groningen in The Netherlands (1980-1982), he returned to Oxford as a research associate with John Krebs (1982-1986). In 1986 he was elected to a Senior Research Fellowship in King’s College Cambridge, where he also joined the Zoology and Experimental Psychology Departments. In 1990 Alex returned to Oxford where he founded the Behavioural Ecology Research Group, of which he has been the Director ever since. He has coordinated and chaired the research group “The Sciences of Risk” at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin (2001-2003) and received the Cogito Prize (jointly with Ernst Fehr, from Zurich) for his interdisciplinary work on risk-related behaviour.
Alex’s interests span comparative cognition, evolutionary biology, experimental psychology and experimental economics. He is well known for his work on decision-making and on the cognitive processes underlying the use of tools by animals. He currently serves on the Royal Society University Research Fellowships committee and the BBSRC Animal Sciences panel, and is External Advisory Professor at the Institute for Biology in the Free University in Berlin.
Click here for a selected list of some of Alex's many accomplishments.
Dr. Ed Mitchell - Director
MA(Oxon), MPhil, PhD
Dr. Ed Mitchell is a co-founder of Oxford Risk. He has done extensive research in human decision-making while a research fellow at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, and as a member of the Behavioural Ecology Research Group at the Department of Zoology in Oxford. Ed was an undergraduate domus scholar in Experimental Psychology at Oxford; he has a Master's degree and PhD in criminology from the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, where he held a Nightingale scholarship at Trinity Hall. Before returning to Oxford, he was a research fellow at Harvard University Medical School in Boston, USA, studying decision-making in the criminal justice and healthcare systems; his research was supported by Fulbright and Wingate scholarships. In 2008 he completed a medical degree at Pembroke College, University of Oxford (where he was a Baber Scholar and Foulkes Foundation Fellow), and is now a research doctor with Oxford John Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust. He continues with teaching, supervision of Masters’ and PhD students, and research.
He has gained expert knowledge of a wide range of industries through research within these organisations, including energy, financial, pharmaceutical, and fast- moving consumer goods.
Terry Thomson - CEO
Terry Thomson is an entrepreneurial business developer and creative pioneer manager with a background in business leadership. He joined Oxford Risk in October 2003, and has been responsible for much of the development and direction of the company.
In his career Terry has created, managed and grown several software, consultancy and technology businesses. He was part of the management team that grew Ives & Company into a group of substantial enterprises including TeamStudio Inc – a successful US-based software product and services business with a global client base and a reputation for incubating innovative new products.
Europe’s leading services company for integrated front office and wireless applications – Aspective – was formed from the customer management division that Terry created and ran. Other interests include Barrowgate Associates, his personal investment and development company, which has worked with businesses as diverse as yacht importers and major financial services organisations.
Terry is a keen skier and runner, a jobbing drummer, and enjoys the theatre and all forms of live music.