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What do porpoise conservation, AI for aquaculture, Christmas Island crabs and algae have in common?

They’re all topics of study for the new intake of postgraduate students at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in Oban, a partner of UHI.

PhD candidate Jaz Harker, who is supervised by Dr Nienke van Geel, will work on progressing harbour porpoise conservation research by optimising vessel-based and static data collection from offshore renewables and Marine Protected Area monitoring. 

Henry Lawrence, who is starting a PhD on integrating machine-based image analysis into the sustainable development of Scottish aquaculture will be supervised by Dr Tom Wilding and work alongside Drs Joe Marlow and John Halpin.

PhD candidate Charlotte Wilson will investigate the combined effects of climate change and metal exposure to physiological adaptation in early life stages of Christmas Island land crabs and will be under the supervision of Dr Helena Reinardy.

Masters by Research (MRes) students Lottie Holland and Thomas Bartram have also joined this cohort.  

Lottie will examine multi-stressor impacts of high temperature and low salinity on the seaweed Alaria esculenta, while Thomas’ project title is: Exploring Marine Fungal ‘Dark Matter’.

Prof. Bhavani Narayanaswamy, Head of SAMS Graduate School, said: “We are delighted with the quality of candidates we have this year for the PhD and MRes projects and yet again we have an extremely diverse topic list.

“The fact that both our MRes students are self-funded is testament to the expertise and openness at SAMS to support research interests. I would encourage others to consider how SAMS might support their career development in a similar way.

“I look forward to getting to know the students and to supporting them in the SAMS chapter of their student journey.”

Find out more about postgraduate study at SAMS.