Project title: Absorption of light by Arctic marine phytoplankton: its ecological and biogeochemical significance
Supervisors: Dr Heather Bouman (University of Oxford), Dr David McKee (University of Strathclyde)
My PhD will focus on ship-based observations of the optical characteristics and physiology of marine Arctic Phytoplankton groups in the Barents sea. This information can be used to contrive and refine remote-sensing algorithms so that satellites can identify which groups of marine phytoplankton are presentĀ in the Arctic ocean and infer their contributions to the Arctic ocean’s biogeochemical cycles. The Arctic ocean biogeography is changing rapidly as a result of climate change, so the ability to monitorĀ this inaccessible but important region’s changing role in the Earth system is essential.
I have an interdisciplinary collection of scientific interests. I have previously worked as part of a project investigating the impact random noise has on climate model realisation of ocean variability and I retain a keen interest in biology, having chosen to investigate the evolutionary dynamics of birds’ wing skeletons for my master’s project. I enjoy field-work based research, solving coding problems and painting.
Andrew is a PhD student in the Arctic PRIZE project.