The Campaign for Political Ecology

Team CVs

The members of the ECO Team are:

Sue Birley
Harry Cripps
Patrick Curry
Barbara Droop
Val Stevens

Sue Birley

Sue Birley is a founder member of ECO and of its predecessor Green Realignment, but came quite late in life to environmental campaigning. She was born in 1951 and after working as a State Registered Nurse, she spent some time with doctor husband David in Malawi, where David treated leprosy. Returning to England, she retrained as a singer and enjoyed some years as a freelance and with Kent Opera and the BBC Singers. She became active in the environmental movement at some point between concerts.

She then decided to take a degree in geography at Oxford University, followed by an MA in European Studies at the University of Reading. She is still based at Reading, working part-time on a PhD, comparing English and French local politics. She spends the rest of her time working for ECO, campaigning on sundry other environmental matters, rearing chickens, bees and vegetables in Wiltshire and running the highly successful, if not widely acclaimed, Wanborough Farmers' Market.

Harry Cripps

Harry Cripps has been a supporter of ECO since 1993 and a member of the Executive since 1994. He is a Chartered Engineer with degrees in Chemical Engineering and Environmental Pollution Control, a Member of the Institute of Energy and a Registered Environmental Professional with the Institution of Chemical Engineers of which he is a Fellow.

Energy efficiency and environmental protection have been active threads throughout his career which began in 1974 as an effluent treatment engineer in the steel industry. This was followed by process and project engineering posts in food and pulp processing. In 1988 he joined a process integration consultancy firm and in 1993 set up independently as HRC Consultants, offering an integrated approach to process plant efficiency, energy and environmental issues.

His other interests include music and outdoor activities; he has been an active rock climber for more than thirty years. Harry was born in 1949, is married and has two adult daughters.

Patrick Curry

Patrick Curry has a BA in psychology (University of California at Santa Cruz, 1978), an MSc in logic and scientific method (LSE, 1980), and a PhD in the history and philosophy of science (University College London, 1987). In recent years he has been working mainly as an independent writer and scholar, during which time he has published three books (one of them an edited volume) on the social history of astrology, an introduction to Machiavelli, and a book on the work of JRR Tolkien, in addition to academic papers, articles and book reviews. He has just started a book on ecological ethics for Polity Press.

Born on 24 March 1951 in Winnipeg, Canada, Patrick has now lived in London for twenty-eight years. He is divorced, with one adult son and step-son, and a daughter aged ten. Other long-term interests and pursuits include Zen Buddhism, local environmental activism, the arts (especially music), travel, and kickboxing.

Barbara Droop

Barbara Droop has been a supporter of ECO since 1994 and a member of the Executive since 1995. She obtained an honours degree in Zoology from Edinburgh and a diploma in Human Biology from Oxford University. She worked on research into deformation in the unborn child before becoming a full-time housewife and mother. She then worked for ten years as psychosexual and marital therapist with Relate.

Recently she obtained an MSc in Science from the OU. She has had a keen interest in the environment and its problems, particularly the pressures of human numbers, since undergraduate days. Barbara is married with two adult children.

Val Stevens

Val Stevens has been involved with ECO since 1994 and a member of the executive since 1996.

She has a degree in Geography and has taught in a variety of schools and colleges. She has been active in the environmental movement since 1971 - first in the Conservation Society under the tutelage of Professor Aubrey Manning, and then with Friends of the Earth for more than 20 years, during five of which she served on the Board of Directors.

For many years she wrote a column in the conservation magazine Green Drum, and at one time had a regular slot on Midlands local radio. However, her main contribution to the movement has been as a speaker at literally hundreds of public meetings. Her main area of expertise is in population issues, but her chief delights come from gardening, choral singing and clog-dancing. She is married to a Professor of Experimental Chemotherapy; they have two adult children and two granddaughters.

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This page last updated: 16-March-2003