Meet the Living Soils Team

Soils, Sediments, Water, Systems Resilience, Infrastructure

Professor Karen Johnson:  Living Soils Lead

• Interests: Soil health and human health | Reversing soil degradation | Soil-centric policy & engineering processes
• Expertise: Environmental Engineering | Rebuilding degraded soils | Soil carbon & pollutant stabilisation using mineral & organic additions | Soil literacy & education
• Find out more: Professor Karen Johnson - Staff Profile

Dr Joe Weaver

• Interests: Soil health analysis | Soil ecosystem dynamics | Real-world bio-innovation solutions
• Expertise: Software development | Hardware automation | Bioinformatics | Applied microbial ecology and biotechnology | Soil water and waste-water management solutions
• Find out more: Dr Joe Weaver - Durham University

Professor Paul Hughes

• Interests: Geotechnical engineering for climate resilience | Impacts of climate on slope stability
• Expertise: Soil and sediment strength analysis | Slope stabilisation | Engineering  embankments for strength, climate resilience & water permeability
• Find out more: Professor Paul Hughes - Durham University

Social Sciences, Built Environment, Health, Climate resilience

Professor Tiago Moreira: Living Soils Co-lead (Sociology)

• Interests: Science and technology studies | Social studies of microbes
• Expertise: Responsible innovation | Creative problem-solving | Public engagement and ethics | Qualitative research methods | Interpretative computational social science
• Find our more: Professor Tiago Moreira - Durham University

Dr Anastasiya Halauniova

• Interests: Urban environment & soils; knowledge, aesthetics, value, governance | Politics and economics of ‘ground’ | More-than-human soils & environments
• Expertise: Environmental, urban & feminist sociology | Permafrost | Urban materialities during  political upheaval | Industrialised soils
• Find out more: Dr Anastasiya Halauniova - Durham University

Plant, Microbial & Molecular Biology & Ecology

Dr Stephen Chivasa: Living Soils Co-lead (Biosciences)

• Interests: Rebuilding soil health | Between-cell communication | Adaptation to drought in plants & crops  | Plant pathogen responses
• Expertise: Whole-plant drought and other stress responses| Proteomics, genomics and metabolomics analysis| Crop resilience and productivity | Plant adaptation to stress and pathogens | Bioenergy
• Find out more:  Dr Stephen Chivasa -  Staff Profile 

Dr Ciara Keating

• Interests: Environmental microbiology | Microbial communities as biotechnological and bioremediation agents | Sustainable agriculture
• Expertise: Microbiomes in human, animal and soil health | Biological waste remediation | Novel anaerobic imaging | Decentralised wastewater treatment methods
• Find out more: Dr Ciara Keating - Durham University

Dr Mags Leighton: Living Soils project manager

• Interests: Soil ecology and restoration | Mesofauna identification and analysis | Sustainable farming systems
• Expertise: Programme coordination & communications | Events delivery | Science writing | Outreach and education | Plant development | Plant and soil ecology | Creative facilitation
• Find out more: Dr Mags Leighton - Durham University

Soils &  Materials Imaging & Analysis

Dr Alexandros Petalas

• Interests: Non-destructive soil testing | Quantitative geotechnical analysis | Soils and metal plasticity 
• Expertise: X-ray computed tomography | Materials cyclic loading and ratcheting analysis Geotechnical problem solving | Non-destructive soil testing 
• Find out more: Dr Alexandros Petalas - Durham University

Dr I. Maria Zougrou: Living Soils Chief Experimental Officer

• Interests: Mesofauna analysis, Carbon stabilisation | Mn, Fe (hydro)oxides characterisation
• Expertise: Characterisation of materials using Xray Computerised Tomography,  Xray Absorption Fine Structure, Xray Fluorescence Spectroscopy
• Find out more: Dr I. Maria Zougrou - Durham University

Dr Gustavo Pinzon Forero

• Interests: Soil climate resilience | Soil mechanics, root growth and microstructure | How materials change under real-world conditions
• Expertise: X-ray computed tomography | Non-destructive internal  characterisation from complex composites to natural soils | Quantitative precision 3D material structure tracking over time
• Find out more: Dr Gustavo Pinzon Forero - Durham University

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