John Whipps is a Professor and Research Unit Leader at Warwick HRI, at the University of Warwick at Wellesbourne which provides academic excellence in plant and microbial sciences and its application to horticulture, crops and the environment (www.warwickhri.ac.uk).
He has developed programmes of work on aetiology and biological control of soil-borne and foliar plant pathogens and has general interests in microbial ecology, microbial interactions including mycorrhizas and mycology. This has involved numerous collaborative projects in the UK and Europe.
He is a member of the management committee of the joint IOBC/EFPP working group on “Biological control of fungal and bacterial plant pathogens” and was local organiser of the WG meeting at Wellesbourne in 1994.
In 1999 he was awarded an Honorary Professorship from the University of Sheffield and in 2003 made a Guest Professor at the Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.