Megan Tresise

Profile

I completed my BSc Zoology undergraduate degree here at Leeds between 2015-2018, graduating with a 2:1. In the summer between graduating from my undergraduate course and beginning my postgraduate course I was a fieldwork assistant to a PhD student for 5 weeks, helping her to collect soil, invertebrate and vegetation data across several farms in the East of England. During this time, I made connections with staff at RSPB Hope Farm, who later helped me to set up my own winter project during my MRes Biodiversity and Conservation course. This project looked at the driving factors of songbird territory location in the hedgerows of RSPB Hope Farm. For my summer project I performed a randomised response survey with visitors of Chester Zoo to analyse their ‘pro-conservation’ behaviours, such as recycling electrics and eating a vegetarian diet. 

In January 2020 I began my interdisciplinary PhD (School of Biology and Priestley International Centre for Climate), from which I hope to identify: 1) baseline greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of several UK farming systems, including the University of Leeds farm, 2) strategies to enable these farms to contribute to the ‘net zero’ GHG emissions goal set out by the UK government, and 3) how GHG emissions may changer under future climate change projections, i.e. can these farming systems still be contributing to net zero?

Research interests

My current research interests revolve around the following:

• Understanding the science of agricultural soils and how these interact with farm management and the atmosphere
• Calculate and understand agricultural GHG emissions using IPCC methodologies and Life Cycle Assessment
• Using farm management, soil and climate data to statistically and spatially model reduction and removal strategies to aid farming’s contribution to net zero
• Utilise GIS and statistical software to model future agricultural GHG emissions under future climate projections, e.g. UKCP18 data

I am a member of the Climate Impacts Group (SEE) and the Global Food and Environment Institute (GFEI), and my project is associated with N8 Agrifood Programme.

Priestley PGR page: https://climate.leeds.ac.uk/profiles/megan-tresise/

Qualifications

• BSc Zoology, University of Leeds
• MRes Biodiversity and Conservation, University of Leeds