Vanessa Woods scoops inaugural RDS Sustainable Agri Start-Up Award
RDS president Professor Owen Lewis presents Dr Vanessa Woods with the RDS Silver Medal as Winner of the Inaugural RDS Sustainable Agri Start-Up Award 2022.
A ruminant nutrition researcher turned science communications specialist has won the inaugural RDS Sustainable Agri Start-Up Award 2022 for her science communications consultancy business.
Dr Vanessa Woods, who holds a PhD in Ruminant Nutrition from University College Dublin and BSc in Microbiology from University College Galway, founded her company Vanessa B Woods Communications in 2019.
With a company mission statement to ‘communicate complex science simply’ and a vision to ‘marry the science of farming, food and health’, Dr Woods explained her aim is to translate science into accurate and engaging messages and stories, for both industry and consumer audiences.
Dr Woods comes from a strong scientific and consumer engagement background, having worked as a senior scientist in the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Northern Ireland, as a lecturer at Queen's University Belfast, and as chief executive of consumer engagement body Agri Aware, during which time the organisation won its first and only European Communications award since it was established in 1996.
Dr Woods has also authored two science-based books — and — to engage the next generation of purchasing consumers in the importance of soil, plant, animal, dental, human and environmental health as key and interlinked components of the food value chain.Â
Her books are now in every primary school on the island of Ireland as part of curriculum-linked education on sustainable farming and food, with the support of her project partners.
Dr Woods' books are also used to promote food tourism in Ireland and to sell Ireland’s sustainable food story across the world.
