Dr. Siobhán Staunton read Chemistry at Oxford University (M.A. 1981) and stayed at Oxford to complete a D.Phil in Soil Science (1986). She spent a pre-doctoral year in Versailles, France and held post-doctoral positions in both Oxford and Imperial College, London (Depts of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering). She joined the staff of the French Agricultural Research Institute (INRA) in 1988, first in Versailles and as of 1990 in Montpellier where she is currently Research Director. She has published over 50 refereed papers and presented nearly 100 communications in national and international conferences. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of the recently launched open access journal, Applied and Environmental Soil Science, Associate Editor of European Journal of Soil Science and has been Guest Editor for both European Journal of Soil of Soil Science and Journal of Environmental Radioactivity. She has been Chair of the Soil Chemistry and Biogeochemical Cycles Committee of the Soil System Sciences Division of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) since its creation in 2002. She is, or has been, on the International Committees of various international scientific societies and has been on the scientific committee of ISMOM since 1998. She will organise the Inter Congress meeting of Commission 2.5 in Montpellier in 2012, following the 2008 meeting in Pucon, Chili. Her research interests have been focussed on the direct and indirect effects of organic coatings on clay minerals on the adsorption of metals, particularly radiocaesium. Her current research interests are the fate of proteins in soil, including both potentially pathogenic proteins such as Bt toxin and prions, and essential soil enzymes.