Warwick iCast - Project Manager

Tom Abbott is the Warwick iCast Project Manager. Tom joined the University of Warwick in 2002 as Online Communications Officer. In November 2005 Tom launched the Warwick Podcasts Programme which has developed into an extensive resource of audio content by University academics. He has also been involved in Research-TV, a project managed by the University of Warwick providing a video news release service for universities and other research organisations in the UK.

Tom has overseen the development of Warwick iCast and will be working with academics to identify stories for the service, as well as managing the promotion and distribution of content.

Contact Details: t.abbott@warwick.ac.uk | 024 7657 4474 | 07920 531160

Robin Powell

Robin Powell is a Director of Ember Regis. Robin has worked in newspapers, radio and television - including 14 years with ITV. As well as reporting from all over the world, he's made award winning documentaries. He regularly reports for Sky News and ITV Central and occasionally for other ITV regions.

A member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, he's won several awards for his work, including Television News Broadcaster of the Year and Internet Journalist of the Year in the BT Midlands Media Awards.

Robin was educated at Repton School and Christ Church, Oxford, and has studied at postgraduate level at the Open University and Open Business School and at Duke University, North Carolina.

For more information visit www.emberregis.com

James Willson

James is joint managing director of Ember Regis and one of the most highly regarded multi-skilled lighting cameramen in the Midlands.

A graduate of the University of Manchester, he began his career in local television in Birmingham and Oxford, where he worked as a producer, director and editor.

For seven years he ran his own production company, Ember Productions. In September 2006 the company merged with Regis Media to create Ember Regis, of which James is now a director.

Most of James’s broadcast work has been for BBC programmes, including The 10 o’clock News, The Politics Show, Top Gear, Inside Out and Midlands Today.

In addition he has worked on Super Reality for the Discovery Channel and a range of sports programmes.

He regularly produces films for a number of commercial organisations, including Pathfinder Pubs, and was for a time an official supplier to the Arrows Formula 1 team.

Emily Little

Emily began her broadcasting career working in independent local radio for Mercia Fm in Coventry as a reporter. After completing a degree in broadcast journalism at Nottingham Trent University she began working for Central Television as a presenter on “The Motor Show” a weekly motoring programme broadcast on OnDigital. Emily quickly moved on working as a producer on Pulling Power, Our House and many other regional programmes. In 2001 Emily joined the BBC to work as a researcher/producer on “Inside Out” before leaving to have her first child. She’s since spent her time bringing up her two daughters with occasional freelance work back in the industry.

Working for Ember Regis on the innovative Warwick iCast project sees Emily returning to presenting and producing on a more permanent basis and is particularly apt since she grew up just a few miles from the University of Warwick.

Mike Leahy

Mike graduated from Oxford Brookes University with BSc in Biology in 1994. He then studied for a doctorate in molecular biology / virology at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford University where he continued to work as a post doctoral research scientist investigating the replication of influenza virus. After finding lab based research a little staid in the late nineties he began moonlighting as a ‘have a go TV scientist’.

His earliest TV appearance was in the first series of the successful BBC2 programme ‘Rough Science’, followed by work on local TV news. After appearing in two further ‘Rough Science’ series Mike finally took the plunge, and left research altogether to present his own BBC3 series ‘LabRats’ in 2003. Since working in TV Mike has tried hard to make science more approachable and understandable and has contributed to several programmes about viruses and contagious diseases including the cutting edge BBC science series ‘Horizon’. Always prepared to experiment on his own body his most notorious TV moment was during the BBC1 series Bodysnatchers where he swallowed a tapeworm cyst and allowed it to grow in his intestines for 11 weeks, finally ‘passing’ the four metre worm in front of a TV audience of millions just days before his wedding. He claims, however, that the imminent birth of his first child makes him feel a good deal more squeemish. Mike currently presents science programmes for SKY ONE. His latest project, which uncovered the secret life of human parasites, called ‘Invasion of the Bodyscratchers’, aired in October and November of 2006. During publicising this programme Mike appeared as a guest on The New Paul O'Grady show on Channel 4 in November.