Meet our chemical regulatory, policy and risk assessment experts
Our team has a broad range of expertise from REACH, poison centre notifications and safety data sheet (SDS) authorisation to environmental chemistry, toxicology, transport and dangerous goods and training. We place great value on the skills of our team members and the relationships they cultivate with our clients, which include hundreds of companies in the chemical supply chain and around 50% of the world’s top 100 chemical manufacturers.
Meet our regulatory team below and for any questions to the team please email us at [email protected].
Caroline Raine – Regulatory Knowledge Leader
Caroline is a chemical legislation expert, with experience of interpreting and implementing EU legislation relating to hazardous chemical substances. Her knowledge and expertise is wide ranging, covering everything from REACH, CLP and poison centres to supply and transport legislation.
This experience has been developed whilst working directly in the chemical industry and through consultancy projects. Caroline is a qualified Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor (DGSA) for the transport of hazardous goods by road and rail and holds a post graduate certificate in REACH management.
She has over 15 years of experience in the regulatory world. Her depth of expertise means Caroline can help clients understand and manage their regulatory obligations, providing bespoke advice and guidance on specific regulatory matters and how best to comply.
Sian has many years experience managing regulatory compliance across complex supply chains in the international chemicals industry. She has carried out regulatory compliance audits in some of the largest chemical plants in Europe, and has been responsible for regulatory compliance of products in Europe, Africa and Russia.
Currently, she heads our SDS and poison centre teams and is supporting a number of our customers maintain compliance with both. She has previously been a part of working groups within Concawe and Cefic in support of their activities related to REACH. She also has many years experience on panels related to analytical chemistry within the Energy Institute, CIA and represented UK industry at CEN.
As well as her regulatory experience, Sian is an experienced project manager and can support you in developing a bespoke strategy for your regulatory compliance.
Georgina Walker – Poison Centre and SDS Product Manager
Georgina works closely with Poison Centres to provide expert knowledge on the poison centre requirements for fulfilling our customers Annex VIII obligations in each Member State.
A skilled project coordinator, Georgina manages our poison centre team and end-to-end projects starting from data collection to providing close-down reports.
Chris Hughes – Associate Regulatory Director leading the Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology (ECT) team
Chris is an environmental scientist and regulatory expert with over 12 years’ experience. Chris specialises in the environmental hazard and risk assessment of chemicals, and global regulations such as REACH and GHS, providing support to a range of private and public sector clients. He also participates in a number of research projects. For example, he is the research lead for the CEFIC-LRI ECO52 project.
Chris has made various presentations and frequently chairs discussions at international conferences, webinars and workshops. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications on the subject of environmental hazard and persistence assessment of chemicals. Chris also acts as Product Director for Ricardo’s REACH and Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology consultancy services, responsible for technical, commercial and financial oversight of these business areas.
Prior to joining Ricardo in 2018, Chris worked for Shell, supporting regulatory compliance for its downstream products. Chris has a Master’s degree from the University of Manchester and is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Emma Pemberton – Principle Environmental Chemist/Ecotoxicologist
Emma is an experienced environmental chemist and ecotoxicologist with over 23 years' experience in a research and regulatory setting.
Before joining Ricardo, Emma was a technical expert on chemical risk in the Environment Agency, providing specialist knowledge and technical leadership on the environmental fate, behaviour and ecotoxicological impacts of chemicals across the business. Emma was the evidence acquisition lead for the Environment Agency’s PFAS working group, developing a cross-business evidence plan for PFAS that identified and prioritised evidence gaps and research needs. She researched and wrote a narrative synthesis of UK environmental monitoring data which evaluated and presented the current evidence base for UK sources, pathways, and environmental levels (see Environment Agency, 2021).
Since joining Ricardo she has been involved in a variety of projects including evaluation of risks to drinking water from persistent, mobile and toxic chemicals and organo-phosphate flame retardants, gap analysis of pesticide legislation, evaluation of data used for PBT/vPvB assessment under REACH.
Emma is a strategic thinker and has worked closely with chemicals policy colleagues, co-designing, and then producing reports, briefing notes, and presentations, which have been used to communicate the evidence base on chemicals of national concern such as PFAS, mercury, PBDEs, cypermethrin, PAHs. The documents are used to inform policy development and influence behaviour and decision making in managing risks to the environment from chemicals. She has a broad range of regulatory expertise, critically evaluating hazard data and environmental risk assessments for pesticides, veterinary medicines, biocides, and industrial chemicals representing the Environment Agency’s concerns at the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, Veterinary products Committee and the Environment Panel. She was an active member of the Water Framework Directive UK Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Chemistry Task team between 2015 and 2021.
Kate Schofield – Senior Environmental Chemist/Ecotoxicologist
Kate has over 10 years of experience on multi-stakeholder projects in academia and industry roles working at the interface of chemistry and biology to evaluate human influences on soil and water environments.
Prior to joining the Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology team at Ricardo, Kate was a Senior Research Fellow and Associate Lecturer at the University of Plymouth, leading an interdisciplinary research team to deliver technical leadership and knowledge in the analysis of terrestrial pollution and soil health and remediation. As an Associate Lecturer, Kate taught scientific principles relating to environmental pollution and remediation, as well as the fundamentals of organic chemistry, through which she has developed a clear communication style that she can adapt to suit varied audiences. Kate’s experience has been laboratory-based, developing methods and applying analytical techniques for the identification and quantification of chemicals within environmental matrices.
She has recently worked with CL:AIRE to co-author the rewrite of the ‘Construction code of practice for the sustainable use of soil on construction sites’ for DEFRA. Kate has also worked in industry-based R&D to deliver a broad range of in-depth critical reviews and reports assessing emerging pollutants (PFAS and UV filters) in surface waters, soils, and sediments, environmental risk assessments, and comparative life cycle analysis. During this time, Kate participated in a US-Navy-led steer group to initiate the removal of the requirement for PFAS in firefighting foam products, paving the way for uptake in fluorine-free foam use.
Kate’s experience in researching a diversity of environmental issues and has published numerous peer-reviewed publications on biogeochemical studies of various environmental matrices. She is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and is currently serving as secretary to the Agricultural Sector special interest group.
Kate has a diverse scientific skillset and is forward-thinking with an analytical mindset, taking a proactive approach to problem-solving and is motivated to drive positive change by finding solutions to complex environmental issues.
Emily Bird – Regulatory Consultant
Emily is a toxicologist with a background in human and mammalian toxicology. She is experienced in assessing the human health risks of chemicals found in land, water and waste, and carrying out chemical risk assessments.
Emily has been involved in a variety of projects helping clients to understand the human health risks of chemicals and chemical legislation. This includes working on impact assessments of the Chemical Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) for the EU chemicals industry and downstream users, including assessing the impact of a future mixture assessment factor (MAF) on risk assessments of REACH registered substances. She has also been involved in the assessment of Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) substances under the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2016 and the collation of toxicological hazard data for Persistent, Mobile and Toxic (PMT) substances. Emily’s role has also involved providing training to clients, including training on Section 11 (Toxicological Information) of product safety data sheets, the current regulatory landscape and hazard identification.
Megan Griffiths – Regulatory Ecotoxicologist
Megan has an MSc in Environmental Science (Chemistry, Toxicology and Health), and knowledge of both ecotoxicology and environmental fate processes, as well as how they feed into risk assessment and regulation. Her laboratory experience encompasses ecotoxicological projects focussed on endocrine disrupters, natural toxins and mixture effects in aquatic organisms. She sits within the Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology (ECT) team at NCEC and is involved in multiple areas of work, from ECT project delivery to aiding projects in the chemical policy and safety data sheet areas. She supports a range of industry clients to address their persistence and biodegradation issues in a regulatory context.
Eleonore Delouvrier – Consultant
Eleonore has a Master's degree in Ecophysiology & Ecotoxicology from Sorbonne University and has had several internships in the field of environmental toxicology, during which she contributed significantly to laboratory and regulatory research projects.
Since she joined NCEC's environmental chemistry team, Eleonore has worked on a variety of projects in environmental hazard assessment of chemicals with a particular focus on PBT assessment and testing of complex and difficult substances. Eleonore is experienced in data searching and compilation in the scientific and grey literature. Eleonore is also actively involved in the REACH team, supporting chemical companies to comply with EU and UK REACH regulations.
Tommy Chang – Consultant
Tommy is an ecotoxicologist, specialising in aquatic ecotoxicology and fish toxicity testing. Before joining Ricardo, Tommy was Study Director working in a Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) accredited contract research organisation (CRO) laboratory, he was working on and managing acute aquatic ecotoxicology, environmental fate and physico-chemical studies to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines. During his time at the CRO laboratory, Tommy developed his knowledge and experience in planning and conducting fish toxicity studies, which led to him becoming the Project Licence Holder for the laboratory. Tommy also provided support and advice in planning aquatic ecotoxicology tests on difficult test substances. Tommy has a BSc degree from the University of Portsmouth.
Chesney Swansborough – Environmental Chemist/Ecotoxicologist
Chesney is an Environment Chemist/Ecotoxicologist. In 2021, she completed her MSc in Environmental Geochemistry at the University of Plymouth shortly after finishing a BSc in Chemistry. During her studies, she has completed research projects investigating the fate and effects of chemicals, predominantly antibiotics, in soil and aqueous environments. Prior to joining the team, she spent a short time in environmental contract research organisation (CRO) laboratories working on environmental fate, ecotoxicological and physico-chemical studies to test guidelines provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This experience has allowed her to gain a good understanding of the ecotoxicological effects and persistence of chemicals in various matrices including water, soil and sludge.
Sam Hinton – Technical Lead, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Sam is Ricardo’s technical lead for LCA and leads a dedicated team of 12 LCA practitioners. He is also Ricardo's in-house expert in SimaPro, an LCA software platform. Sam has undertaken life cycle assessments across the transport sector covering Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (e-VTOL) aircraft, busses, cars, heavy duty trucks and trains. Beyond transport, Sam has undertaken LCAs and Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) within the construction & infrastructure, energy, water, food & drink and chemical sectors. He is experienced in undertaking studies to comply with standards such as ISO14040, ISO14044, ISO14020, ISO14025 and specific Product Category Rules. He is experienced in building clear models that convert clients’ data into impact assessments and performing sensitivity analysis.
Beyond LCA, Sam has delivered a range of carbon calculators for clients in the environmental sector, including updating the UK's GHG Conversion Factors' heat and steam model and the UK Water Industry Research’s Carbon Accounting Workbook. Aside from modelling, Sam is also an experienced project manager with experience leading various carbon and LCA projects.
Rebecca Johansen – Chemical Policy Lead
Having previously worked for Risk & Policy Analysts Ltd, Rebecca has over 7 years’ experience in EU chemicals policy intervention and regulation. Rebecca’s experience includes data generation, collection and analysis for numerous socio-economic analyses, impact assessments and policy evaluation studies for both the European Commission, European Agencies, National Governments and industry.
Her key projects for the European Commission and its Agencies have included the study to assess the impacts of adding standard information requirements to Annex VII-X of REACH for endocrine disruption; the CLP Impact Assessment; and the study on the regulatory fitness of the legislative framework governing the risk management of chemicals (excluding REACH), in particular the CLP Regulation and related legislation in accordance with the European Commission’s Better Regulation Guidelines. Other Commission studies of note are – providing scientific and technical support for collecting information on and reviewing available tools to track hazardous substances in articles: with a view to improve the implementation and enforcement of Article 33 of REACH; a feasibility study into tools to manage information flows from product supply chains to waste operators; and legislative mapping and preparation of policy briefs under HBM4EU.
Her work for private sector clients includes being the project manager and technical lead for the Cefic economic analysis of the impacts of selected actions from the EU Commission’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS); the project director and technical lead for the related IFRA, Cosmetics Europe and A.I.S.E. studies on the CSS; the Cefic REACH Landscape Study; the TiO2 socio-economic assessment for TDIC; and assistance in Applications for Authorisation under REACH.
Simon Cook – Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor (DGSA) Manager
Simon works across a wide range of our regulatory portfolio including SDS authoring, poison centre notifications, global regulations, Emergency Action Code Dangerous Goods List and the Hazmat Conference. Simon coordinates NCEC's Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor Service (DGSA) and manages the Chemedox® SDS management software as well as being involved in developing new services. Simon holds an MEng in Chemical Engineering and is currently in training to become a Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor.
Our team members would be very happy to chat with you and understand your regulatory challenges. If you have any questions for them, please reach out to us at [email protected]