Twenty years' experience in provision of administrative and contract/financial management support to NRI. Contact point for all NRI publication enquiries. Previous experience with NRI includes PA/secretarial support, library and records management, and project control. Current role Executive Officer for the Office of the Director.

NRI Commercial Manager and invertebrate pathologist. Twenty-eight years’ experience working in sustainable development, comprising: 16 years' experience of project management; twelve years’ experience of research and development on insect diseases as crop protection tools in the tropics.

Key expertise:

Project financial management (pre and post-award); grant application processes; project management; client liaison; biopesticide development.

In-country experience:

Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Benin, India, Ghana, Thailand and Bolivia.

Professor Sheryl L Hendriks is Professor of Food Security and Director of the NRI. She previously held positions at the Universities of Pretoria, KwaZulu-Natal and Natal, South Africa. She is an internationally recognised transdisciplinary researcher focussing on food security. She has extensive experience in the design of policy frameworks, policy analysis and programme design. Her research focuses on food security policy analysis at the national and global levels. More recently her work has focussed on food systems analysis, including sustainable and healthy diets.

She is actively engaged in high-level global food security policy think tanks and panels as well as being influential in food systems research and policy debates. Some of these engagements include co-leading the Action Track on Nutritious, Safe Food for the United Nations (UN) Food Systems Summit Scientific Group, the Malabo-Montpellier Panel advising African governments on public policy choices and a member of the UN Committee on Food Security’s High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition from 2010 to 2015. She led the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme’s (CAADP) Food Security Pillar from 2006 to 2010 and the drafting of the Inter-Academy Partnership’s consensus report on Food and Nutrition and Agriculture report and was a member of the team drafting the global synthesis report on this topic. This work led to her appointment as a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2020.

Contracts co-ordinator. Responsible for negotiating and administering NRI's contracts, with expertise in: providing guidance on all contractual issues (including contract law and intellectual property rights); liaising with NRI's key clients; and advising NRI colleagues on the issuing of sub-contracts. Previous administrative experience within NRI includes: file records management and registration; corporate publications and publicity; and personnel support.

Sharron has worked with the Natural Resources Institute since January 2001. In her role as Awards and Grants Manger she is responsible for line managing and coordinating the Post Awards Team ensuring efficient and effective financial regulatory guidance and professional services support is provided to the NRI’s operations. Sharron is responsible in ensuring the smooth and efficient management of NRI-project and grant finances from inception to project completion, ensuring audit and financial reporting obligations of external clients and donors are met.