Professor Grant Stentiford is Chief Scientist at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), an Executive Agency of the UK Government’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Cefas, via its leading role as an applied science organisation is focussed on ensuring a sustainable future for our rivers, seas and the ocean, supporting healthy and productive marine and freshwater ecosystems and those communities that rely upon them.
Prior to taking on the role of Chief Scientist, Grant was Principal Pathologist at Cefas where he also led the Animal and Human Health Theme, was Head of the WOAH Collaborating Centre for Emerging Aquatic Animal Diseases and was co-Director of the Sustainable Aquaculture Futures Centre at the University of Exeter, UK, where he holds an honorary professorship. Up until 2018 he was Director of the European Union Reference Laboratory (EURL) for Crustacean Diseases on behalf of the European Commission during which time he also led on Aquatic Animal Health at Cefas. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2014 and, a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 2016. His core work, focussing on identification and impact of aquatic animal diseases on farmed and wild animals more recently developed to programme which incorporated One Health principles into sustainable food system design. Via this work, Cefas have developed a broad national and international science portfolio in which these systems-based approaches are now incorporated.