Prof Stewart is the Director of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre, a £27M regional development initiative at the James Hutton Institute (JHI), focussing on precision technologies for plant/crop production. He also holds the chair of Plant and Food Chemistry at Heriot Watt University. From a background in the UK pharmaceutical industry as a drug designer, he has pursued a >30 year career in crop production, raw material composition and its relation to product quality, functionality, bioactivity and utility. Prof Stewart has significant experience of science discovery, translation and commercialisation projects at the international level and currently leads the JHI science in the area of transformative crop production systems for food and non-food applications. 

Prof Stewart is lead on projects focussing on vertical farming, crop quality and nutritive value and functionality from a range of sources.  He has an H-index of 63, has published >200 refereed papers and over his career has been involved in projects with a cumulative value of ~£300M.