AERU AGRICULTURE & ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH UNIT
 

Prof. Kathy Lewis, BSc, PhD, FIAP, MIEMA
Professor of Agricultural Chemistry

Email: k.a.lewis@herts.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 (0)1707 284582

Kathy is an environmental chemist and research leader for the Agriculture and Environment Research Unit. She joined the University in 1995 and established AERU soon after. Kathy became a Professor in 2014.

Kathy's main areas of interest include environmental management of agriculture, horticulture and land-use, in particular environmental pollution from chemical inputs and the impacts arising from agricultural processes taking a whole farm perspective. She is also involved in the development of techniques to encourage a more sustainable agriculture including the socio-economic aspects, rural development, policy issues, environmental labelling and green taxes. Kathy's work covers a wide spectrum of topics including pesticides, nutrients, waste and resources and biodiversity, particularly with respect to climate change and rural development. This has evolved over the years to cover the entire farm to fork production chain particularly with respect to policy development.

Kathy is a Fellow of the Institute of Analysts and Programmers (FIAP) and a Member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (MIEMA). She is also the UK Editor of the Elsevier scientific journal ‘Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment’.

Qualifications

Kathy's first degree in environmental chemistry with computer science was awarded by the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), and her PhD in agricultural best practice and was awarded by the University of Hertfordshire.

Previous employment

Before joining the University of Hertfordshire, Kathy spent 23 years at Warren Spring Laboratory and 1 year in Industry working as an Environmental Manager.

Selected projects

  • Waitrose pesticide load indicator for sustainable crop protection
  • Review of Livestock Feed Additives that have Direct Beneficial Effect on the Environment
  • The climate change mitigation potential of an EU farm: towards a farm-based integrated assessment
  • Assessment of reduction in environmental burdens through targeted measures compared with whole farm approaches in cropping and livestock systems
  • Development of chemical substance databases (PPDB, VSDB, BPDB)
  • Effective approaches to environmental labelling of food products
  • Developing software tools for pesticide risk assessment for the EU FOOTPRINT Project
  • Comparison of the Environmental Risk of Pesticides used in Conventional and Integrated Farming Systems for Farms
  • Concerted Action of Pesticide Environmental Risk Indicators (CAPER)

Recent publications

  • Badawy, M.H., Murnane, D., Lewis, K.A. & Morgan, N. (2024). The effect of formulation composition and adjuvant type on difenoconazole dislodgeable foliar residue. . Journal of Environmental Science & Health, Part B, 1–11. DOI.
  • Veldkamp, A.. Li, Y., Alignier, A.M., Audet, P., Bajocco, S., Chen, X., Cheng, Y., Drinkwater, L.E., Lewis, K.A., Petit, S., Saggar, S., Toyota, K. & Zheng X. (2023). How to get your paper published in 'Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment'. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 359: 108687. DOI [Editorial].
  • Badawy, M.H., Murnane, D., Lewis, K.A. & Morgan, N. (2023). A new laboratory method to study the impact of leaf texture on pesticide dislodgeable foliar residues (DFR). Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B, 58(8): 555-564. DOI.
  • Rainford, J, Tzilivakis, J., Garthwaite, D., Jones, G. & Lewis, K.A. (2023). Finalising a Pesticide Load Indicator for the UK: Phase 4 Report. Prepared for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), UK, for project PC0116, by FERA Science Ltd and the Agriculture and Environment Research Unit (AERU), University of Hertfordshire, UK. [Download].
  • Badawy, M.H.; Murnane, D., Lewis, K.A. & Morgan, N. (2022). Development of a New Dislodgeable Foliar Residue Analytical Laboratory Method for Pesticides. Annals of Work Exposure and Health, Preprint. DOI.

Prof. Kathy Lewis's extended publications list.

Link to UH profile page

University of Hertfordshire
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University of Hertfordshire, 2023.