A huge congratulations to our School of Natural Sciences Researchers who are 3 of the 13 Trinity staff members to receive SFI Frontiers for the Future funding.
- Silvia Caldararu (Assistant Professor, Discipline of Botany)
Project: Trait-Tweaks: Exploring Ecological Realism in Ecosystem Models under Future Climate Conditions
Prof. Caldararu will use the ability of plants and ecosystems to respond to changes in their environment, both short-term through changes in function, and long-term through changes in the species present, to develop models that will better predict the future of the planet in light of global climate change.
- Margaret Jackson (Assistant Professor, Discipline of Geography)
Project: Improving models of future ice-sheet and sea-level change though assessing the (in)stability of the former British-Irish Ice Sheet
Prof. Jackson will map and date sediments deposited by the former British-Irish Ice Sheet during a period of sustained climatic change to reconstruct the response of the ice sheet to intervals of warming. The work will improve future ice-sheet and sea- level models, future sea-level projections, and community sea-level adaptation plans in Ireland and beyond.
- Pete Akers (Assistant Professor, Discipline of Geography)
Project: A new isotopic method to reveal blanket bog drought resilience: DRYPEAT (Deuterium-excess Reconstruction to Yield Peatland Evaporation, Aridity, and Transpiration)
Prof. Akers will study bog plants preserved for thousands of years within peat to reconstruct a drought history to better know what droughts bogs can survive. Blanket bogs are critical carbon and biodiversity reserves for Ireland, but the drier future brought by climate change threatens their existence.
This is a huge achievement for our Researchers with 3 of Trinity’s 13 projects coming from School of Natural Sciences in this prestigious programme and represents >€2M in research funding over the next 4 years.
For further details of the 13 funding recipients for Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin click HERE