Congratulations to Alex Williams, in the second year of his PhD with STARS, who has been accepted on to the National PhD Training Programme in Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Research. Alex, whose project is looking at antibiotic resistance on the farm, evaluating risks to soils, crops and human health, will join a multidisciplinary group of PhD […]

STARS is happy to announce that we have been awarded an additional studentship through the NERC National Productivity Investment Fund. Projects for this studentship are currently being sought and will be advertised on the STARS website soon. This is a great opportunity, building on the successful PhD level soils science training, which the STARS CDT […]

As part of the STARS training programme, cohort 1 attended the European Geoscience Union (EGU) assembly this April, accompanied by STARS director, Phil Haygarth. As well being able to appreciate the breadth of science presentations at the week-long event, STARS students were more deeply involved, co-convening a session in the Soil Systems Science division of […]

STARS is excited to be planning a conference for all its students and supervisors at the Low Wood Bay, Windermere, 15th-17th January 2019. More information to follow.

STARS PhD Researcher Dan Evans (Lancaster University) was last month awarded a £19,000 grant from the NERC Cosmogenic Isotope Analysis Facility (CIAF). Based in East Kilbride, Scotland, the facility provides cosmogenic radionuclide analytical facilities to scientists interested in yielding fundamental information about rates of landform evolution. Dan spent just under a year formulating the application […]

Cohort 2 have recently returned from a very successful fieldtrip to Tenerife, following in the footsteps of their colleagues in Cohort 1 and in search of those teabags so carefully buried there for them. The trip was led by Davey Jones, Dave Chadwick, Andy Tye and Emma Sayer, with a guest appearance by Phil Haygarth. […]

The STARS CDT has produced another short film addressing the importance of effective communication of scientific research to stakeholders, policy makers and end users. The film features STARS students discussing their experiences of communication, from government policy briefings to practical advice for farmers. As well as the students, we hear from experts in the field of […]

Congratulations to Cohort 1 student, Paul George who’s first PhD paper is now published. The paper, “Evaluation of mesofauna communities as soil quality indicators in a national-level monitoring programme” is published in Soil Biology and Biochemistry. The research looked at mesofauna from soil cores collected throughout Wales as part of the nationwide soil monitoring programme. […]

STARS welcomed its third cohort of students recently at a three day welcome event held at Rothamsted Research, Harpenden. Having been fortunate in being awarded an additional seven students through the NERC National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF), this cohort is the largest yet at 18 students. All 18 made it to the event, despite some […]

Congratulations to Cohort 1 student, Jasmine Burr-Hersey who has published her first research paper recently. The paper, “Developmental morphology of cover crop species exhibit contrasting behaviour to changes in soil bulk density, revealed by X-ray computed tomography” is published in PLOS ONE. It examines the responses of root growth for different species of cover crop […]