Trustees and key post holders

Andra has a background in ecology and conservation, having completed her MSc at Edinburgh Napier University, where her research focused on exploring spider community assemblages in raised bogs and timber plantation systems. She worked as a research technician for Restoring Resilient Ecosystems at University of Stirling where she furthered her arachnological skills and helped understand ecosystem function along a woodland complexity gradient. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD, examining the biodiversity benefits that sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) can provide in addressing the pollinator crisis across the Central Belt of Scotland.

Anna has always been interested in the natural world, but her passion for arachnology developed after she started studying Animal Management in 2018. Since then, she has completed her Biodiversity and Conservation BSc (Hons) with her dissertation focusing on spider communities in different habitats in the Peruvian rainforest and her MRes, which focused on the conservation genetics of the Fen Raft Spider (Dolomedes plantarius). She will continue studying the Fen Raft Spider during her PhD and hopes to continue integrating ecology and molecular techniques to aid the conservation of other endangered arachnid species in the future. 

After learning about spiders to get over his phobia, Barry started to keep tarantulas, before long having a collection numbering in the hundreds. He then started to take an interest in native spiders and it became a bit of an obsession. Barry has an amazing wife and four wonderful children - they're often found in the field looking for spiders as a family activity. Although he has mobility issues he refuses to let this hold him back, even if one day in the field costs him three days in pain! He is starting a degree in Environmental sciences in February 2027.

Bill is retired, after an enjoyable career largely spent in financial services but also with Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and for the final years working at Dauntseys School.

He's been a keen naturalist, albeit very amateur, since a child and in particular spiders and birds. Other passions include travel, walking, music and reading. 

He lives with Helen, his wife of 40 years and has two sons, both married and two very lively grandsons. 

This will be his second spell on the BAS council and he looks forward to supporting the work of the BAS, as well as he can, during this latest term.

After completing a degree in Earth Sciences at Oxford, Bill opted to follow a different career path, holding a number of roles of increasing seniority in sales, marketing and international business management, the last 27 years of which were with a well-known US multinational company. He is passionate about the natural world and is a keen birder, a licensed bird ringer and a wildlife sound recordist. He is a former Membership Officer for the BAS and became President in 2023. Bill is also spider County Recorder / SRS Area Organiser for Buckinghamshire and, together with Helen Smith, administrator of BAS’s Twitter account. His other interests include guitar, old agricultural machinery and Morris dancing!

As a recent immigrant to the UK, much of Colin’s  experience has been in Southern Africa. After a short career in the South African Army, his interest in the natural world found him working in one of the oldest snake parks in South Africa, then moving to a snake and crocodile farm. At this point he felt environmental education was more his forte, and worked as an environmental education officer, ending up running a small nature reserve for a few years, his interests being primarily with invertebrates and reptiles. He then discovered technology and has worked in many industries as a software developer over the last 20 years, and hopes to be able to use this accumulated educational and technological experience to further the aims of the Society.

A retired academic from the University of York, Geoff has researched the maintenance of genetic variation and speciation/hybridisation in spiders for over 50 years. He served as an ordinary member of Council between 2000 and 2003 and returned as Vice President in 2009. After a spell as President (2010-2013) he took on his present role as Hon. Secretary in 2014. He is one of the authors of Britain's Spiders, an editor of the Arachnologists' Handbook and, since 2020, an Honorary member of the Society.

Gerald Legg is a retired museum keeper, lecturer, author and consultant who has studied the British pseudoscorpion fauna for around 50 years as well as West African ricinulei, describing species new to science. In the 1970s he served as a member of Council representing the pseudoscorpions. He is the author of the Linnean Society Monograph on Pseudoscorpions illustrated by Richard Jones, and the joint author of the Field Studies Council's Illustrated key to the British False Scorpions. Since 2016 he has been an Honorary member of the Society.

Helen was a plant ecologist before converting to arachnology on inheriting the conservation programme for the Fen Raft Spider from Dr Eric Duffey in 1992. Joining BAS Council in 2008 she has served as vice-President and President. She is an editor of the Arachnologists' Handbook, and an author of Britain’s Spiders. Reflecting her life-long interest in conservation, she is a co-author of the 2019 report A New Deal for Nature, a member of the ICUN’s Spider and Scorpion Specialist Group and currently BAS Conservation Officer. She was elected as an Honorary Member of the Society in 2025.

Thomas is a behavioural ecologist with research interests in arthropods in general, but in web-building behaviour of orb spiders in particular. He has a MSc from the University of Aarhus in Denmark and a PhD from the University of Bath. He has conducted field work on tropical spiders in Panama and cave spiders in Spain, Portugal and Italy, but most of his research experience comes from studies of orb spiders in the UK. He works as a lecturer in biological sciences for the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education and is also a senior research fellow at the Jersey International Centre of Advanced Studies.