AgriSearch CliBeef Team
Jason Rankin
Jason is Strategy Manager at AgriSearch, he first started his job role in 2011. He is responsible for developing organisational strategy and managing stakeholder relations. His work includes developing new projects, securing external funding, overseeing AgriSearch’s PhD Scholarships programme, and representing the charity on external bodies.
Strategy Manager
Sean Kane
Sean is AgriSearch’s Operations Manager and Company Secretary. He is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation, covering finance, HR, governance, and company secretarial duties. Raised on his family’s beef and sheep farm in Newcastle, County Down, Sean combines his practical farming background with strategic oversight of the agrifood sector, helping AgriSearch deliver meaningful impact for farmers and stakeholders
Operations Manager
CliBeef Network Manager
Leah Steele
Leah is AgriSearch’s Network Manager, appointed in February 2026. She is responsible for strategic coordination and overall management of the CliBeef Project, directing AgriSearch’s contribution and overseeing Farm Liaison Officers. Also ensuring effective stakeholder engagement, project delivery, knowledge exchange, and dissemination of sustainable beef production.
AFBI CliBeef Team
Dr Francis Lively
Francis is the project coordinator for CliBeef and head of beef and sheep production sciences at AFBI. Francis holds a PhD on beef eating quality from the Agricultural Research Institute of Northern Ireland’s (ARINI) Food Science Division at Newforge and ARINI Hillsborough. Francis began working on beef production at AFBI in 2005 covering a range of topics from production systems, breeding, nutrition, and greenhouse gas emissions
Project Lead
Dr Paul Cottney
Paul is the programme leader for herbage and arable cropping for AFBI. He holds a BSc in Agricultural Technology and a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast in agricultural land use and soil health. Paul leads a research programme focused on using plants as a nature-based solution to climate change utilising cover crops, organic manures, and novel cropping.
Researcher
Researcher
Dr Seyed Ali Goldansaz
Ali is a Senior Scientist at AFBI and Deputy Project Leader for CliBeef. He leads the project’s scientific work, coordinates research across partners, and helps ensure the team delivers practical results that benefit farmers and support a more efficient and profitable agri-food sector. With international experience and a strong background in livestock science, sustainability and metabolomics, he brings both scientific expertise and project leadership to the team
CliBeef Project Manager
Hazel Brown
Teagasc CliBeef Team
Prof David Kenny
David Kenny is Head of the Teagasc Animal and Bioscience Research Department in Ireland. He has over 25 years of research experience in the biological control of a range of economically important traits to beef cattle production systems, including growth and reproductive efficiency and feed efficiency and rumen methane emissions. He is a past president of the British and Irish Society of Animal Science and is currently the president of the Physiology Study Commission of the European Association of Animal Production.
Head of Animal and Bioscience Research
Dr Paul Smith
Paul is the Beef Cattle Production and Rumen Microbiology Research officer at Teagasc, Ireland’s agriculture and food development authority, in Grange, Co Meath. He has a PhD in Rumen Microbiology and Animal Science from University College Dublin. His research focuses on developing strategies to reduce enteric methane emissions from ruminants via breeding and dietary supplementation, calf health, and beef cattle nutrition..
Research Officer
Research Officer and Beef Enterprise Leader
Dr Paul Crosson
Particularly interested in economic and environmental assessment of beef cattle production systems. Paul is involved in current projects such as developing more sustainable weanling-to-beef production systems in the context of animal genetics and multi-species swards. Bio-economic modelling of maternal traits for grass-based suckler beef cow production systems and development, validation and application of a bioeconomic systems model of beef cow reproductive management strategies
Technologist
Dr Adriana Braga
Adriana is an Environmental Engineer and obtained MSc. degree and DSc. degree working on anaerobic systems. Adriana carried out research projects at Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) for 5 years, at Instituto de la Grasa (Spain) for 1 year and at University of Galway (Ireland) for 2 years assessing anaerobic digestion for bioenergy production (biohydrogen and methane) from domestic sewage, agro-industrial wastewater and waste and macroalgae. Adriana joined Teagasc Animal & Grassland Research Centre at Grange Co. Meath in July 2023 as agricultural emissions research technologist.
QUB CliBeef Team
Prof Sharon Huws
Sharon is a Professor in Animal Science and Microbiology within the School of Biological Sciences and the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research focuses on enhancing sustainable livestock production within the remit of ensuring planetary and human health. Prof Huws is a senior editor for the journal Microbiome and Editor-in-chief for the sister journal Animal Microbiome. She also sits on the Scottish Government's Academic Advisory Panel.
Professor in Animal Science
Dr Katerina Theodoridou
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Dr Kayley Barnes
Kayley's expertise is in ruminant nutrition, novel feed ingredients, microbiology and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant systems. Within the CliBeef project Kayley is testing a range of feed additives and feed ingredients for their methane mitigation abilities and effects on the end-products of rumen fermentation whilst also exploring the mode of action within the rumen environment and feed additive delivery mechanisms for grazing systems.
Technical Support
Dr Phillip McCarron
Philip McCarron provides technical support for staff and students at QUB's ASSET Laboratory in the School of Biological Sciences, developing quantitative and qualitative workflows using mass spectrometry. With over 30 years experience in industry and academia, Philip has been involved in many research areas such as food authenticity, metabolomics, environmental pollution and clinical trials. For his Ph.D, he developed a recyclable process for separating drug enantiomers that is more environmentally acceptable over existing methods.