I've always felt like I wanted a career that let me work with nature, when i was young I wanted to be just like Steve Irwin. As I got older and realised that we don't have any crocodiles in the UK I decided to focus on habitats closer to home. I have a real interest in bryophyte ecology, which i discovered when i realised plants don't run away when you look at them, unlike the birds and mammals my colleagues chase around all day. Outside of academia I spend a lot of time reading and trying to keep my puppy, Indy, from chewing the furniture too much. I also have a classic VW beetle which I'm very unsuccessfully restoring, so far I've been working on it for 15 years and theres much less of it left than when I started, but it will be finished any day now, I promise.
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BEING A SUBJECT REPRESENTATIVE
I chose to take on the role of subject rep because I came to Swansea through clearing in 2016, I was very lucky to have a great community of staff and students around me to help me and I owe a lot to them. Now I'm doing my PhD and when I saw there was an opportunity to be on the other side and give something back, I took it.
KEY RESPONSIBILTIES
My responsibilities as PhD rep include making sure that the biosciences PhD community is represented at all levels of the faculty, as well as collecting feedback and concerns from the other PhD students and making sure it finds its way to the right people at the university.
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MY CURRENT STUDIES...
I research upland peatland restoration. I spend a lot of time out on top of the mountains in the Welsh Valleys looking at how the restoration works affect the plant communities present there and the levels of greenhouse gas fluxes captured or emitted by the habitats. I also work with fluvial carbon exports, soil characteristics and carbon content and do work with protected species like water voles. My favourite thing to work with, and the thing most people probably know me for, is moss. I also work part time for an upland restoration project, have my own ecological consultancy, have been involved in several grant funded projects and am on the committee of WEEN.
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