The University of Hull Microplastics Research Group are working towards understanding some of the urgent issues caused by microplastics in the marine environment along with our partners in both the Arctic and Antarctic, the British Overseas Territories, South East Asia and the UK.
Our academics and postgraduates are working on a wide range of topics: from modelling flows of microplastic particles through major rivers and into the oceans, how plastic changes composition when exposed to environmental conditions, the impacts of microplastics on remote and local food webs to how individual animals respond, behaviourally and physiologically, to chemicals given off by plastics as they decompose.
The cluster hosts a number of PhD researchers, covering a similarly diverse range of topics relating to microplastics in the environment.
Current PhD Researchers in the Microplastics Cluster:
Lucrecia Alvarez
Supervisor: Chris Hackney
Quantifying and modelling global large river fluxes of microplastic
Julian Blumenroeder
Supervisor: Cath Waller
Microplastic in remote marine food webs.
Jack Buckingham
Supervisor: Cath Waller
The Ecological fate of microplastics in Antarctic marine environments - a source to sink approach.
Felicitas ten Brink
Supervisor: Bryony Caswell
Impacts of microplastic pollution on intertidal food webs.
Jessica Hurley
Supervisor: Jorg Hardege
The physiological effects of microplastic ingestion.
Freija Mendrik
The transport mechanisms of microplastics in major rivers and their surrounding coastlines: A case study in the Mekong River, SE Asia
Victoria Scott
PhD Supervisor: Jorg Hardege
The effects of multiple stressors on aquatic organisms, including plastics and climate change predictions.