Hello friends, I am Heidi McIlvenny, and I look forward to meeting you.
My research is focused on coastal blue carbon habitats like seagrass and saltmarsh that can sequester and store carbon. For them to be included in Northern Ireland’s Green House Gas (GHG) inventory, they need to be mapped, and the carbon store and sequestration rate determined. I would also like investigate other factors such as habitat condition and permanence, carbon source and reactivity, and genetic structure to deepen our understanding of these habitats and to inform management and potential restoration activities.
My undergraduate degree, first master’s degree and first ‘proper’ job focused on elasmobranch conservation. I still love sharks but now work across a wider remit of marine policy and protection at Ulster Wildlife.
My second MSc was in Environmental Governance. I used semi-structured interviews, coding and theming methodologies to explore how integrating ‘smart technology’ into a city can transform urban governance arrangements. I produced insights into how human dimensions and power structures can cause proven technology to fail. I hope to explore a similar facet in my PhD, thinking about the interplay between marine restoration initiatives and anticipatory governance.
Photo by John Mark Arnold on Unsplash
