John Anthony Pickett Commander of the Order of the British Empire Doctor of Science Federal Reserve System is a British chemist who is noted for his work on insect pheromones.
Education
Pickett completed Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the University of Surrey and was a post-doctoral researcher in organic chemistry at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology before joining the Brewing Research Foundation.
Career
In 1976, he moved to Rothamsted Experimental Station (now Rothamsted Research), studying ways to control insect pests by modifying behavioural activity. He was appointed Head of the Insecticides and Fungicides Department (later the Biological Chemistry Department) in 1984, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Pest and Disease Management in 2007, Scientific Leader of Chemical Ecology in 2010 and is currently a Michael Elliott Distinguished Research Fellow. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996.
He became a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (United States) in 2014.
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.
Membership
Royal Society]
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.