Winston Churchill Fellowship Award

We can now announce that our very own Dr Claire Gwinnett has been recognised with a prestigious scholarship for her research into the global problem of microplastics. She  is among only 150 people to receive the Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship this year. This funding will allow Dr Gwinnett to build on this research by travelling across the USA and Australasia visiting fellow scientists who also partake in the analysis of microplastics and the education around plastic pollution. She will be working with the Rozalia project joining them on their 2018 expedition along the Hudson River, sampling microplastics from the river and the air from on board what is recognised as the greenest sailing research vessel in the world, the famous American Promise. The objectives are:

1. Learn about different operations and activities in the broader context of microplastics/plastic debris conservation work in order to aid plastic pollution management in the UK.
2. Understand how education plays a part in the global understanding of microplastics and bring back these ideas for implementation in the UK, including public engagement activities.
3. Investigate the different methods used for the sampling of microplastics from different evironments in order to inform a standardised approach.
4. Investigate the different methods used globally for the quantification and characterisation of microplastic in order to develop an automated standardised method for use in the UK and beyond.
5. Understand methods used to the collation, comparison and interpretation of microplastic data in different countries, including use of different software and public facing programmes to create a UK method for data collation.
6. Identify new areas of research and technological solutions in microplastics.