Sarah joined Geography and Environment at Loughborough University in 2018 as the Analytical Laboratory Technician. Following a six-month secondment in the post, she became the Laboratory Manager in 2022 and then Technical and Scientific Services Manager in 2024. Her role is to manage and maintain the research and teaching laboratories across a broad range of geographical disciplines (e.g. chemical and physical, microscopy, river science, geochronology and meteorology) whilst ensuring compliance with health and safety regulations and standards.
Before starting at Loughborough (2016-2017), she worked at the University of Nottingham as a teaching fellow in Environmental Science, where she taught modules such as Soil Science, Environment and Society, Environmental Modelling and Research Skills whilst supervising undergraduates’ research projects. Prior to teaching, she worked as a Research Fellow in the School of Biosciences (University of Nottingham) on an EPSRC project addressing rural hybrid energy systems (2012-2016). Her work package focused on characterising wastes and residues generated by anaerobic digestion and gasification as a function of waste streams and conditions, assessing the long-term application to soil and establishing novel by-products through field and laboratory work in both the UK and India. She also has research experience in dung ecology (2009-2012), when she monitored farm and regional scale effects of Anthelmintics use on farmland ecology within the UK.
In 2010, she completed her PhD at The University of Nottingham entitled “Quantifying the effect of microbial diversity and plant roots on soil structural development”.
- Manage and maintain the research and teaching laboratories in Geography and Environment.
- Plan, organise and prioritise the laboratory work of the Geography and Environment technical team.
- Provide technical support for research and enterprise activities.
- Manage laboratory budgets and the purchase of equipment and consumables.
- Advise on equipment bids for internal funding and enterprise projects.
- Provide technical tuition, guidance and assistance for under- and post-graduate students, research staff and academics.
- Ensure compliance with health and safety regulations and standards in addition to University and School procedures and protocols.
- Act as Department Safety Officer (DSO) providing advice and assessment of Risk and COSHH assessments.
Selected Publications
- PRATER, C., BULLARD, J.E., OSBURN, C.L., MARTIN, S.L., WATTS, M.J. AND ANDERSON, J.N. 2022 Landscape controls on nutrient stoichiometry regulate lake primary production at the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Ecosystems, 25 (4), 931-947.
- PLEDGER, A., JOHNSON, M., BREWIN, P., PHILLIPS, J., MARTIN, S.L. AND YU, D., 2020. Characterising the geomorphological and physicochemical effects of water injection dredging on estuarine systems. Journal of Environmental Management, 261, 110259.
- MARTIN, S.L., CLARKE, M.L., OTHMAN, M., RAMSDEN, S.J. and WEST, H.M., 2015. Biochar-mediated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from soil amended with anaerobic digestates. Biomass and Bioenergy. 79, 39-49
- MARTIN, S.L, MOONEY, S.J., DICKINSON, M.J. and WEST, H.M., 2012. Soil structural responses to alterations in soil microbiota induced by the dilution method and mycorrhizal fungal inoculation Pedobiologia. 55, 271-281
- MARTIN, S.L., MOONEY, S.J., DICKINSON, M.J. and WEST, H.M., 2012. The effects of simultaneous root colonisation by three Glomus species on soil pore characteristics. Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 49, 167-173