Research Opportunities
Geneviève Metson – Sustainable Resource Management Lab
These three positions are available with a September 2024 start date.
The Sustainable Resource Management (SRM) Lab conducts research that aims to transform how we manage resources to ensure food security and water quality around the world with a special focus on cities and their relationship to their agricultural hinterlands. We employ quantitative and qualitative methods to look at how cities and farms can be bright spots of nutrient management.
PhD opportunity – Phosphorus footprinting from consumer to watershed
Transforming from today’s unhealthy and harmful food system to a sustainable one requires engagement all along the food chain. Cities, as centres of food consumption and waste production, contribute to resource demand (e.g. mined phosphorus fertilizers) and pollution (e.g. phosphorus induced eutrophication of waterways). Despite their collective purchasing and voting power, urban consumers remain one of the most elusive actors to engage in deep sustainability transformation work.
The advertised position would work to develop a Canadian consumer phosphorus footprint compatible with existing carbon and nitrogen footprint work. Footprinting would be done for different types of consumers, notably those that participate in urban agriculture. The idea is to evaluate the potential role of urban agriculture training as an experiential learning intervention to change attitudes and behaviors related to phosphorus management within and beyond city limits.
MSc opportunity – Nutrient management and water quality with urban agriculture
The student would investigate how much phosphorus and nitrogen is moving through food gardens in and around London Ontario. They can choose to focus on leachate monitoring (field work), watershed modeling, or garden-level material flow analysis (field work which includes garden interviews). This thesis project would complement ongoing studies in Minneapolis Saint-Paul USA and Linköping Sweden.
MSc opportunity – Campus nutrient budget
The student would work to update and develop Western University’s accounting of their carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus resource footprints and explore intervention points and future scenarios to decrease environmental impacts. They will draw on the SIMAP framework (and researcher network) and may contrast different accounting methods.
Please email Geneviève Metson with a CV and an unofficial transcript if you are interested.
Katrina Moser - Lakes and Reservoir Systems (LARS) Research Facility
The Lakes and Reservoir Systems (LARS) Research Facility provides opportunities for students to gain expertise in paleolimnological techniques that are used to study the effects of climate change and nutrient enrichment on water resources. LARS currently has a number of undergraduate and graduate student opportunities available.
BSc or MSc Paleolimnological Research Opportunity
- A Paleolimnological Investigation of Rock Glacier Lakes in the Uinta Mountains of Utah
MSc or PhD Paleolimnological Research Opportunity
- Algal Blooms in Small Ponds in Southwestern Ontario – Causes and Consequences
- Holocene Records of Environmental Change in Southwestern Ontario
Please email Katrina Moser and provide a transcript and resume if you are interested.
Jed Long - Geospatial Analysis Lab
MSc Opportunity – Canadian students only
The Geospatial Lab (https://geospatial.uwo.ca/) at Western University is seeking an MSc student to work on either of the following two projects:
- Big data for studying impacts of outdoor recreation on wildlife
- Understanding home-working trends using mobile-phone data
Please send Dr. Long an email to express interest in either of these topics.
