This webinar was on "Submerged volcanoes, and coral reefs under climate change: Early career perspectives from EMB Young Ambassadors". It will feature the research and experiences of the two outgoing EMB Young Ambassadors, Alba González Vega and Liam Lachs, who have served in the role since Spring 2019 and who are ending their 2-year term in Spring 2021.
Alba González Vega holds a BSc in Biotechnology from the University of Salamanca, Spain, and a MSc in Oceanography from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Spain. She is currently undertaking a PhD programme in Oceanography and Global Change (ULPGC), developing her research at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO), an EMB member institution. She is working on a multidisciplinary study of the submarine volcano Tagoro (Canary Islands, Spain), which erupted in 2011 and still remains active in a degassing stage. Her work intends to assess the impact of the hydrothermal emissions from this shallow volcano on the physical, chemical and biological properties of the local marine environment.
You can find her presentation here.
Liam Lachs has focussed his research on a range of coral ecosystems with a range of scientific approaches. After investigating the oceanographic drivers supporting vibrant deep-sea coral mounds on the Irish continental margin (National University of Ireland Galway), Liam was awarded an Erasmus Mundus Fellowship to conduct his MSc in Tropical Biodiversity and Ecosystems (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). As part of a scientific diving research team, he designed and published a collaborative thesis based on shallow reefs in Malaysia, entitled “Effects of tourism-derived sewage on coral reefs: Isotopic assessments identify effective bioindicators”. Currently, Liam is researching how climate change affects corals and coral reefs. Specifically he is exploring the demographics of coral populations, creating predictive models of coral bleaching in partnership with NOAA, and is testing the scaling-up potential of assisted evolution as a method of coral reef restoration. This work is a part of the ERC project CORALASSIST at Newcastle University and is funded by EMB member NERC.
You can find his presentation here.
The recording of the webinar is available to re-watch the EMB YouTube page.