Peter Matthiessen (MATT)

Peter Matthiessen is the sole, self-employed staff member of the Peter Matthiessen ecotoxicology consultancy. This consultancy has been in continuous operation since 2006, and has a wide range of clients in government, NGOs and industry. The consultancy has tended to specialise in the provision of advice in the field of endocrine disruption, but has also been directly involved in research on the effects of various endocrine disrupters (EDs) on fish and amphibians. A particular speciality of the consultancy has been the development and validation of new ecotoxicity test methods for endocrine disruptors.

Since 2006, Peter has been a self-employed consultant in ecotoxicology, but before that he was employed by a series of environmental research institutes (DFID and its predecessors from 1973 to 1985; Cefas from 1985 to 2001; CEH from 2001 to 2006) as a research ecotoxicologist. During the period since 1985, his research focused mainly on the aquatic environmental effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) such as tributyltin, and his team at Cefas was the first to discover that UK fish were becoming feminised by oestrogens in sewage. As well as conducting research (until recently on EDCs which interfere with the corticosteroid system), he advises the UK government on setting Environmental Quality Standards, is a member of the UK Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee, and co-chairs the OECD Validation Management Group for Ecotoxicity Tests which is developing new methods for evaluating endocrine disrupters. He co-authored OECD Guidance Document no. 150 which helps users interpret the results obtained with these methods. Peter will essentially provide internal peer review of various project outputs, with particular attention to the development of endpoints and biomarkers, and the validation of new ecotoxicity tests.