Dr Matthew Saunders B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.
Contact Details:
|
Biography:
July 2007 - Postdoctoral research assistant at University College Dublin, School of Biology and Environmental Science. I am currently working on the Ecosystem Processes component of the COFORD funded Carbifor II project, and am investigating the impact of stand age, yield class and forest management on greenhouse gas fluxes.
January 2006-June 2007. Postdoctoral research assistant at Trinity College Dublin, School of Natural Sciences. During this period I worked on an EPA funded research fellowship entitled "Accounting for greenhouse gas sources and sinks in major Irish land use categories: contributing to a co-ordinated centre for flux measurements (CCFLUX)". My primary contribution to this project was the assessment of the carbon budget of a spring barley crop under different tillage management (convention and non-inversion tillage) and an extensively managed grassland. My responsibilities were to manage and maintain the daily operations of the eddy covariance towers and associated phenological and soil based measurements, to collate, gap-fill and statistically analyse the EC data produced and submit this data to the EPA and CarboEurope-IP databases.
2002-2005. Ph.D. Trinity College Dublin, School of Natural Sciences. Thesis title "Fluxes of Carbon and Water in Cyperus papyrus L. tropical wetlands". This study utilised eddy covariance techniques to measure fluxes of carbon dioxide and water vapour between papyrus vegetation and the atmosphere in a wetland located on the Northern shore of Lake Victoria, Uganda. This research was part of a larger 5th Framework EU project entitled ECOTOOLS; Tools for wetland ecosystem resource management in Eastern Africa.
2001-2002. M.SC Environmental Science. Trinity College Dublin, School of Natural Sciences. Thesis title "Methane emissions from an artificial papyrus wetland: An investigation into ebullition and plant mediated transport". This project used a constructed papyrus wetland to estimate rates of methane release through both the plant culm and across the air-water interface.
1996-1999. B.Sc Environmental Science. University of East Anglia. Undergraduate thesis title " An investigation into the tolerance of commercial crop cultivars to salt stress". This thesis investigated the tolerance of Triticum aestivum and Hordeum vulgare to increasing salt stress, by studying plant productivity and the compartmentalisation of potassium and chloride ions in the root and shoot structures of the plants.