John A. Pickett

Who is John A. Pickett?

John Anthony Pickett CBE DSc FRS is a British chemist who is noted for his work on insect pheromones.

Pickett completed BSc and PhD degrees at the University of Surrey and was a post-doctoral researcher in organic chemistry at UMIST before joining the Brewing Research Foundation.

In 1976, he moved to Rothamsted Experimental Station, studying ways to control insect pests by modifying behavioural activity. He was appointed Head of the Insecticides and Fungicides Department in 1984, and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Pest and Disease Management in 2007.

He has also been a Special Professor at the University of Nottingham since 1991, and an Honorary Member of the Academic Staff at the University of Reading since 1995. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996.

He was awarded a share of the 2008 Wolf Prize in Agriculture "for their remarkable discoveries of mechanisms governing plant-insect and plant-plant interactions. Their scientific contributions on chemical ecology have fostered the development of integrated pest management and significantly advanced agricultural sustainability." He delivered the Croonian Lecture the same year to the Royal Society on Plant and Animal Communication.