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Stephanie Osbourne
PhD Student

Profile

Biography

Steph is a PhD student with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York. She has research experience in plant ecology and physiology, across both academia and industry. Steph is interested in food security, international development, and building resilience of food systems in response to global change.

She spent the first two years of her PhD at CEH Bangor planning and managing large-scale air pollution experiments, and is now applying her experimental data in ecophysiological modelling at SEI York. 

Career

2013-present

PhD student

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and SEI York

Jan - April 2015

Postgraduate Research Fellow

Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST)

2009-2013

BSc Ecology

University of Sheffield

July – Sept 2012

Research Assistant

University of Gent

2011-2012

Industrial Trainee

Syngenta

Research

Overview

Description of PhD:

Title: Modelling the impact of ozone pollution on food security in Europe and South Asia

Supervisors: Prof. Gina Mills and Dr. Lisa Emberson

Funding: Natural Environment Research Council

Description of Thesis:

My PhD project investigates how tropospheric ozone - a common air pollutant and toxin - can influence the physiology of crop plants, and lead to severe reductions in yield. The research focusses on crop varieties grown in Europe and South Asia, and investigates how the air pollution risk to food security might differ between these two world regions. Data collection for the PhD project has involved carrying out large-scale air pollution exposure experiments at the CEH Bangor Solardome facility, and a measurement campaign at Banaras Hindu University, India. I am currently in the process of applying my experimental data in the calibration and development of a stomatal conductance model, with the aim of trying to improve existing tools for predicting air pollution impacts to crops.  

Publications

Selected publications

Osborne, S.A., Mills, G., Hayes, F., Ainsworth, E.A., Büker, P. and Emberson, L (2016). Has the sensitivity of soybean cultivars to ozone pollution increased with time? An analysis of published dose-response data. Global Change Biology, 22(9):3097-111.

 Osborne, S.A. and Wentworth, J. (2015). Novel Food Production POSTnote. 

Contact details

Stephanie Osbourne
PhD Student
Department of Environment and Geography
Wentworth Way, University of York
Heslington
York
YO10 5NG