Several of our members were actively involved in the Institute of Aquaculture PhD Conference held on 28th October 2022. This is an opportunity for Postgraduate Research Students at the Institute of Aquaculture to present their work not only to other students and staff at the University, but also to representatives from Industry and other research organisations.

The conference opened with a Keynote presentation by Lindsay Pollock, a previous PhD student of Professor David Little, but better known now in the industry for her work with Cargill and now Salmon Scotland. Lindsay plotted the course of her career, from early work on seahorses in the Philippines and Vietnam through development work in India to technical support and sustainability in Scotland. She particularly shared how systems thinking and analysis learned during her PhD helped in her approach to taking on wider industry responsibilities.

Mausam Budhathoki, a current PhD researcher working with David Little & Richard Newton (IoA), Danny Campbell (Division of Economics, Stirling Management School) and Saihong Li (Literature and Languages Division, Faculty of Arts & Humanities), gave a flash presentation on his work looking into aquatic food consumption behaviour among Asian consumers. Initial work has focused on a structured literature review to confirm the main factors identified and establish a framework for future work.

Reed Ozretich presented on his work, funded by the Belmont Foundation, considering the potential for aquaculture to reduce poverty and control schistosomiasis in Côte d'Ivoire during an era of climate change. You can read more about his field work in Côte d'Ivoire in his recent blog article

Alexandra Pounds gave a short presentation on her work on framing aquatic animals within sustainable food systems (see also video below)

Björn Kok and Wesley Malcorps were not able to attend the event, so presented via pre-recorded video. Björn presented on “Sustainable plant ingredients? Using decomposition analysis to quantify the environmental trade-offs of European aquaculture feed”. Wesley Malcorps presented his work on “Fish by-products and blockchain technology to maximise utilisation” (Video included below). All the Postgraduate Researchers also produced and displayed posters of their work, which also included a poster from Alexander “Olek” Kaminski reporting his work on the contribution of aquaculture to livelihoods, diet and food security for smallholder farmers in Zambia (pictured).

Simultaneous with the PhD conference Wesley Malcorps and Alexandra Pounds released videos about their work on our YouTube channel.

See more video of the event below

Banner photo: Professor Simon MacKenzie, Head of the Institute of Aquaculture, opens the conference.