BlueC Team

This project brings together active key researchers in the field of blue carbon from three Irish universities, UCD, University of Galway and UCC.

Dr Grace Cott

Project lead

Dr Grace Cott is an Assistant Professor at University College Dublin, leader of the Blue Carbon research lab, and a Marie Curie alumna. Dr Cott’s research is focused on quantifying carbon stocks and sequestration rates and greenhouse gas emissions from saltmarsh habitats and coastal reed swamps, and assessing plant and habitat responses to climate change. In 2014, Dr Cott undertook her Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Maryland USA working at the Global Change Research Wetland. In 2020, Dr Cott secured a Science Foundation Ireland Starting Investigator Grant to launch blue carbon research in Ireland. In total, she has secured €3.3 million in research funds to date.

Prof Dagmar Stengel

University of Galway team lead

Professor Dagmar Stengel is marine botanist at the University of Galway where she leads the Algal BioSciences Group. She has extensive research background in the ecology and ecophysiology of marine primary producers, including algae and seagrasses. A particular interest has been the assessment of global change parameters on primary productivity and composition marine plant/algal resources. Recent projects have examined ecological and metabolic responses of seaweeds, microalgae and seagrasses to their environment, including effects of climate change and anthropogenic influences such as harvesting regimes and deterioration of water quality, and have developed new approaches in marine plant/algal resource assessment and management. Research has been supported by the EPA, the Marine Institute, Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, SEAI and the EU, amongst others.

Dr Rachel Cave is Lecturer in Chemical Oceanography in the School of Natural Science at the University of Galway since 2004 and has trained more than 250 students in sampling at sea on research vessels. She carries out research on ocean acidification and biogeochemistry in Irish coastal and shelf waters, and in the Rockall Trough west of Ireland, which hosts cold water coral and other vulnerable marine ecosystems. She is also involved in the JPI Climate/JPI Oceans CE2COAST project, whose downscaled ocean models will provide hindcasts and forecasts of climate-driven change in Irish coastal and shelf waters relevant to BlueC.  

Professor Mark Johnson is programme director of the BSc Marine Science programme and professor of Marine Environment at the University of Galway since 2008. Previously he worked at Queen's University Belfast, and the Universities of Southampton and Liverpool. Professor Johnson has researched both fundamental and applied marine ecology, including recent collaborations on deep sea biodiscovery, climate change and aquaculture. He was a co-author of the 2020 report to the Irish Government on expanding the national marine protected areas (MPA) network. As part of the BlueC team in the University of Galway, Professor Johnson will work on broad scale habitat assessments and mapping.

Dr Pedro Beca-Carretero

Postdoctoral researcher

Pedro Beca-Carretero currently works at the Ryan Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway. Pedro does research in Physiology, Ecology and Modelling in the light of climate change.

Stephen Hynes is a Professor in the Disciple of Economics at the University of Galway. He is also the director of the Socio-Economic Marine Research Unit. He is also the Director of the Socio-Economic Marine Research Unit. Stephen has a strong background in marine economics and applied environmental/natural resource economic research and extensive work experience in econometric modelling. His main research interest is in microeconomic behaviour analysis, related to natural resource/environmental policy and his work has been published by a number of the top-ranked journals in the fields of marine, environmental and natural resource economics.

Professor Tasman Crowe is director of the Earth Institute at University College Dublin, co-director of a new interdisciplinary BSc in Sustainability and co-chair of the steering group for UCD’s strategic priority Creating a Sustainable Global Society.  He is chair of the National Biodiversity Forum, a member of the expert advisory group for the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss and recently chaired an MPA Advisory Group on the expansion of Ireland’s network of Marine Protected Areas. His research characterises impacts of multiple stressors on marine ecosystems and the services they provide to society, including their cultural value.

Dr. Anne Marie O’Hagan is a Senior Research Fellow in the MaREI Centre, ERI, UCC and has over 15 years of experience in applied marine and coastal research. Her background is in environmental science and law. Anne Marie’s recent work has focused on the legal aspects of ocean energy development, planning and management systems for offshore energy devices and their environmental effects. She is involved in a number of multidisciplinary projects focused on aquaculture, maritime spatial planning, environmental assessment, and risk-based consenting. Anne Marie represents MaREI on a number of working groups including the International Energy Agency’s Ocean Energy Systems Agreement (IEA-OES), the EC’s Ocean Energy Forum Environment and Consenting Steering Committee, ICES Working Group on Marine Renewable Energy and the all-Ireland Marine Renewables Industry Association (MRIA). She also teaches on the LLM in Marine Law (Law School, UCC) and the MSc in Applied Coastal and Marine Management (Department of Geography, UCC).

Dr Saule Akhmetkaliyeva

Postdoctoral researcher

Saule recently finished her PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), where she studied organic carbon and microbes in newly-developed soils following glacier retreat in northern latitudes. During her time at MMU, Saule also worked as a research assistant in geochemistry and organic carbon burial in wetlands identifying the source of organic carbon using organic biomarkers. As part of the BlueC project at UCD, Saule researches carbon provenance in Ireland’s blue carbon ecosystems.

Dr Claudia Cara Ortega

Postdoctoral researcher

Claudia obtained a BSc in Biological Sciences, a BSc in Marine Sciences and an MSc in Ecological Management and Conservation Biology in Spain. She recently finished her PhD at the University of Galway (Ireland) where she focused on the ecophysiology of marine macrophytic primary producers and their microbiome. Her research experience also involved contributions to other projects, such as seagrass ecophysiology and the assessment of invasive seaweed species. As part of the BlueC project, Claudia undertakes research into carbon dynamics and accumulation in Irish seagrass systems at the University of Galway.

Geraldine Doolan

PhD student

Geraldine is a PhD student at the University of Galway. She has completed the Masters in Global Environmental Economics at the University of Galway, receiving a first-class honours. She also received a first for her undergraduate degree in German and Hispanic Studies at University College Cork. Geraldine is interested in environmental economics and her PhD research will focus on the economic value of Blue Carbon Ecosystems in Ireland. 

Saige is a PhD student at the University of Galway. She completed her MSc in Coastal and Marine Environments: Physical Processes, Policy & Practice at University of Galway in 2021, in which her research focused on ecological habitat assessments. She completed her BSc in Parks, Recreation and Tourism in 2020, which was focused on natural resource management. As part of the BlueC project, her PhD research focuses on ‘Carbon stocks, dynamics, and processes in Irish seagrass and selected macroalgal systems’.

Eliza Fairchild

PhD student

Eliza is a PhD student at University College Dublin. They completed their BSc magna cum laude in Environmental and Sustainability Science at Cornell University, with a focus on soil science and biogeochemistry. As a part of the BlueC project, Eliza’s PhD will focus on quantifying lateral carbon fluxes of tidal salt marsh wetlands in Ireland.

Ragna Hoogenboom

PhD student

Ragna is a PhD student at University College Dublin. She completed her MSc in Aquatic Ecology at Lund University in Sweden in 2023, focusing on the interplay between ecological and evolutionary processes. She completed her BSc in Biology at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. As part of the BlueC project, her PhD research focuses on the experimental manipulation of climate change factors of both salt marsh and intertidal seagrass habitats. This will be done by establishing a long-term monitoring site and a warming experiment.

Avery Fenton

Research Assistant

Avery is a research assistant on the BlueC Project focused on defining and mapping potential Blue Carbon Ecosystems in Ireland. In 2021, she completed her undergraduate studies in Earth & Ocean Sciences at the University of Galway where she carried out research on paleoenvironments. Her industry experience is in GIS and Remote Sensing, providing a background in modern environmental monitoring methods.

Advisory Board

Dr J. Patrick Megonigal, Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre, USA

Dr Steven Crooks, Silvestrum Climate Associates, USA

Prof Dorte Krause-Jensen, Aarhus University, Denmark

Prof William Austin, St. Andrews University, Scotland

Prof Núria Marbà, Global Change Research Group, IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB), Spain

Dr Pere Masqué, International Atomic Energy Agency, France

Dr X-Anton Alvarez-Salgado, Spanish National Research Council Marine Research Institute, Spain