Tutors

Mr Kevin Bagwell, Supervisory Engineer Technician, International Boundary Commission (IBC), United States and Canada, US Section, has been employed with the IBC for seventeen years, spending two years in the Montana field office and eight years in the Maine field office as an engineering technician . Kevin has been in his current position for five years working from the headquarters in Washington, DC. Before coming to work for the IBC Kevin was employed with the North Carolina Department of Transportation for thirteen years as construction surveyor specializing in bridges and other structures. Kevin has achieved many accomplishments while working with the IBC including the clearing of vista along the boundary in Glacier National Peace Park in Montana/British Columbia which entailed remote camping and using helicopters to move equipment along the boundary. Kevin was also involved in the multi year project of clearing, monumenting and surveying of new boundary monuments along the St. Francis River.

Mr Songchai Chaipatiyut, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Treaties and Legal Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand is a Thai career diplomat and legal adviser. Songchai has experience in land and sea boundary negotiations between Thailand and neighbouring countries and was on the legal team of many negotiations since 1999. During 2020-2021, in his capacity as Director of the Boundary Division, he served as Secretary to all five land and sea boundary bilateral joint commissions/committees between Thailand and her neighbours. He was also assigned, during 2011-2012, to Thailand’s legal team for a case at the International Court of Justice, the Request for Interpretation of the Judgment of 15 June 1962 concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) (Cambodia v. Thailand). Apart from the boundary negotiations, Songchai was also responsible for other questions of public international law.  He was recently Head of the Thai Delegation to the 4^th and 5^th Intergovernmental Conferences on an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction: BBNJ IGC). Songchai has been assigned to overseas postings in Cambodia (2003-2007), Austria (2009-2011) and Italy (2016-2018). He was Director of East Asia II Division, Department of East Asian Affairs during 2018-2020.

Professor Danny Donoghue, Geography Department, Durham University, has a broadly based research profile that covers applications of remote sensing and GIS technologies in the fields of forestry, coastal ecology, land use change and archaeology. He has published over 100 articles and has been principal investigator or co-investigator on 45 research grants and contracts. He has served on numerous committees, boards and panels including as Chair of the UK Natural Environment Research Council’s Airborne Science Steering Committee, Director of Durham’s NERC Doctoral Training Partnership, the North East Satellite Applications Catapult, and since 2017 as member of the Executive Board of the Coimbra Group of 41 research-intensive universities across Europe. Recent projects include research on the impact of drought on European beech forests, quantifying carbon in Asian and south American mangrove forest ecosystems and quantifying forest change using high resolution imagery and machine learning technologies.

Mr Peter Merrett, Director, Merrett Survey Ltd originally trained as a mining engineer at the Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall, UK. After working in seismic oil exploration, Peter returned to UK and started his own surveying practice, Merrett Survey Ltd a land survey company which specialises in GPS and Geodesy work, and has to date worked in 63 different countries including on international boundary projects, some with the United Nations. Peter has always worked with the latest technologies including laser scanning (aerial lidar and ground based) and has presented papers for 3 years in a row at the ILMF (International Lidar Mapping Forum) in the USA. Peter has also presented papers at pipeline conferences in Europe, plus oil industry conferences in Europe and Asia. This is the second time Peter has been a Tutor for the IBRU