Dr. Saoirse Tracy is Assistant Professor in Applied Plant Biology in the School of Agriculture and Food Science. She is a soil and plant scientist and her research centres around understanding plant root and soil interactions. Her research interests include using X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) to understand the response of roots to the soil physical environment.

She has been Assistant Professor at University College Dublin since 2015, prior to that she studied and worked at the University of Nottingham. She is Programme Director for the Taught Masters Programme in Environmental Resource Management. In 2019, she was appointed as the President of the Soil Science Society of Ireland. 

In this workshop, former BSSS ECR Chair, Dan Evans, will share the tips and tricks he’s learnt about finding and securing research funding as an Early Career Researcher. He’ll outline a vast range of different types of funding, from exchange grants to Fellowships, effective approaches to writing research proposals, and answer some frequently asked questions.

Dr Dan Evans is a Lecturer in Soil Formation at Cranfield University. He leads both fundamental and applied research on soil formation and the parent materials from which soil is formed.

His work focuses on the interactions between parent materials and soils, how soil parent materials support soil ecosystem services, and the natural and anthropogenic threats to the parent material zone. He also studies how soil formation can be accelerated, such as the manufacturing of new soils for urban green infrastructure.

Dan is the Deputy Early Career Scientist representative for the European Geoscience Union, representing Early Career Scientists from more than 20 geoscience disciplines across the Union. He’s an Associate Editor for the European Journal of Soil Science and is a member of multiple EU Soil Observatory working groups including soil erosion, soil pollution, and organic carbon.

1. Urmi Ghosh  – Application of computational approaches in soil-mineralogy to understand mineral-nutrient relationship
2. Katie Martin – Short and long-term effects of slurry applications on earthworm populations
3. John Nunns – Effect of wheat roots and bulk density on soil microbial properties and pesticide degradation
4. Jessica Brook – Broad scale multiple year temporal changes in the physical structure of agricultural soils across three catchments in Scotland
5. Cristina Mcbride-Serrano – Can increased cover crop diversity bind more soil in the field?
6. Aileen Lynch – Novel genes associated with insoluble phosphorus can be utilised to assess soil health
7. Tinashe Mawodza – Soil management in the construction of the HS2 railway line

As early career researchers, you possess a unique set of skills, knowledge and analytical thinking that make you highly valuable in the field of consultancy, and across the wider industry. This workshop has been tailored to provide you with valuable insights and guidance on how to kickstart your journey outside of academia. Whether you have just embarked on your research career or are considering a transition, we will work with you to equip you with the necessary tools and strategies to successfully navigate this dynamic industry. Prepare to explore the diverse array of opportunities, learn how to translate your skills and knowledge, and gain the confidence to make your mark in the world. We will hear from established industry professionals, examine their pathways, and use this to inspire ours, examining the skills and knowledge we have developed along the way and how we can leverage our unique experiences to really make ourselves stand out.

This session will be run by early career consultants from Arcadis, drawing upon personal skills and experiences in navigating this exciting world beyond academia.

Professor Paul Hallett is President-Elect of the British Society of Soil Science.  He is a Soil Physicist at the University of Aberdeen, where he is tutor of the MSc Soil Science and coordinates postgraduate research training of over 150 PhD students in the School of Biological Sciences.

His research explores solutions to food and environmental security, mainly focussed on the interactions between plants, microorganisms and the physical behaviour of soil. His work spans from understanding the fundamental processes driving changes in soil physical properties by biology, through to applied research examining soil degradation and the underlying causes. 

Recent projects have studied the capacity of different plant root traits to physically engineer soil, crop selection impact on hydrological cycling in southern China, the better use of organic resources in Ethiopia to improve soils and their capacity to produce food, and microplastic pollution of soils.

How it started? How it’s going? 25 years of soil water repellency research

About 25 years ago I attended the forerunner of the BSSS Early Careers’ Conference to speak on my new research on soil water repellency. I had just started my first permanent position at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, entering the emerging discipline of soil biophysics. When exploring bioclogging of soil by bacteria and fungi, I noticed that some treatments wetted quite slowly but were not severely hydrophobic. At the time, a common perception in soil physics was that most agricultural soils were totally wettable, so I got dismissed as a soil mechanics guy entering soil water physics when I suggested water repellency at meetings.

From a search of the literature, I found a simple approach to measure ‘subcritical soil water repellency’, which I extended using a small-scale aggregate infiltrometer developed by Peter Leeds-Harrison and Edward Youngs, two soil physics greats and BSSS advocates from Cranfield University.  The first study found that water sorptivity (wetting rate) decreased with increasing applied nitrogen due to water repellency in both field and laboratory experiments on ploughed arable soil. The nitrogen increased microbial activity, so we postulated that exopolymeric substances provided a hydrophobic coating on soil aggregate surfaces and macropore walls.  Subsequent research found that different exopolymeric substances decreased soil wettability and increased mechanical stability, but there were large differences between compounds produced by either plants, fungi or bateria. Other research exploring tillage practices observed diminished water repellency of soil aggregates with ploughing, suggesting that reduced tillage may stabilise soils by decreasing the slaking stress of rapid wetting. To reach a soil science audience, I published two of these studies in EJSS, and they remain my top 2 most cited research articles.

Twenty-five years later, this early research has defined my career.  I am still seeking small-scale approaches to measure soil biophysical properties, aiming to disentangle processes that drive soil structure dynamics and stability.  Soil in the rhizosphere, for instance, was found to be more repellent than surrounding soil, but the effects were attenuated by the presence of root hairs. This research is exploring a new generation of crops that have root traits to positively impact soils and resource use efficiency. Direct links have been found between water repellency and soil aggregate stability, helping to understand a major process in soil stabilisation.  The most recent research is combining micro-scale measurements of soil physical structure by X-Ray CT imaging with small-scale hydrological and mechanical measurements. Four of the current PhD students in my group are exploring how plant species diversity (Annette Raffan), carbon (Abdul Walid Salik), root exudates (Sean Graham) and carbon priming (Luke Harrold), affect soil water repellency and structure. A MSCA Fellow (Nasrollah Sepehrnia) found that microplastic pollution produces a water repellent ‘plastisphere’.  You will hear from some of them at this meeting, and another generation of soil scientists may hear from them again in 25 years’ time.

1. Olivia Azevedo – The long-term effects of woodland creation on soil structure and the fate of carbon
2. Mollie Frost – Calculating the Carbon Sequestration Potential of Cement Bypass Dust as an Agricultural Soil Amendment.
3. Ana Prada Barrio – Effects of traffic and tillage management systems on soil organic carbon dynamics
4. Catriona Willoughby – Leys, organic amendments and reduced tillage lead to carbon accumulation in farmland soils: a rapid evidence assessment
5. Sharon Chebet – Rapid increase in soil organic carbon and structural stability following conversion to semi-natural grassland irrespective of management history
6. Mary Cvetkovic-Jones – Savanna soil carbon: interactive impacts of fire and climate on soil respiration
7. Muhammad Mohsin Abrar – Long-term manure application enhances organic carbon and nitrogen stocks in Mollisol subsoil

How can further training and professional body registration help your career journey?

Are you keen to become a future Full Member and Chartered Scientist?

Join the BSSS Team at our drop-in session to find out more and ask any questions you may have!

Natalie Coles joined the BSSS team in September 2020 as Senior Administrative Assistant.

She is now Operations and Business Development Manager, and is responsible for membership applications and renewals, events and accounting.

1. Yusra Zireeni – Effect of slurry acidification on the uptake of S, P and N by plants
2. Longnan Shi – Prediction of soil bulk density in agricultural soils using mid-infrared spectroscopy
3. Jennifer Wardle – What links soil nutrients to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?
4. William O’Neill – COM-VITE: A Sustainable Recovered Urban Waste Composite for Soil Conditioning in Silviculture
5. Hannah Walling – Improved soil phosphorus management is required to optimise soybean biological nitrogen fixation
6. Patti Roche – The influence of soil structure on phosphorus dynamics