We are a (marine) environmental engineering research group within the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at University College London. Our group is based in Adelaide, South Australia, with our offices and lab at the Future Industries Institute (FII) of the University of South Australia (UniSA), Mawson Lakes Campus.

As a group our goals are to better understand and improve the management of impacts of energy and resources developments on the marine environment. We have excellent laboratory facilities in Adelaide – well set up for ecotoxicology testing, chemical analyses and advanced microscopy. We also have a wide range of field sampling equipment for environmental monitoring and a small but very capable ROV that we use for video sampling. Please also have a look at our Research and News pages which outline the sorts of work we currently do, but we are always keen to talk to people about new ways to address environmental and social issues associated with the energy and resources sectors.

Industry Partners

A feature of our group is that we work closely with a range of industry partners, in both our research and teaching. Partly, this is because most of us  have also spent time working outside of academia, but mainly because we like working with others on practical solutions to pressing environmental and social problems.

On the research side, Craig and Hazel have worked previously with environmental consultancies (e.g. RPS, Jacobs, Aurecon) on Oil & Gas and port development projects across Australia for  companies including Chevron, Woodside, Santos and a number of port authorities. One exciting project we have just started working on is with Nyrstar, Flinders Ports and the South Australian Environmental Protection Agency to map and then manage metal contamination in the marine areas surrounding Port Pirie.

Teaching-wise, we regularly lean on our industry colleagues to provide guest lectures in the courses we run for the MSc in Global Management of Natural Resources and MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems.  For example, in Craig’s Social Licensing course, guest lecturers in the last few years included colleagues from Rio Tinto, CSIRO, Santos, Terramin mining and a range of people from environmental and social consultancies.  Craig also runs annual field trips on the MSc courses to a range of key industrial sites in South Australia, such as Olympic Dam (BHP), the Port Pirie smelter (Nyrstar) and Whyalla steelworks (Liberty OneSteel). MSc students working  with Craig in recent years have partnered with CSIRO, Hillgrove Resources and Terramin mining for their research projects. We are always eager to talk to people about potentially hosting student research projects which address environmental or social problems associated with the energy and resources sectors.

While Craig is an academic at University College London, he and the ERME group are based in Adelaide at UniSA, where Craig  also holds an adjunct appointment.  This means that projects run in Australia are more easily managed through the UniSA research and innovations services office. Additionally, there are some terrific internal schemes at UniSA which promote industry-university collaboration which can be accessed to work with us, as well as others at UniSA. In particular, the Futures Industries Accelerator Scheme  provides a range of ways to do this –  including R&D vouchers, support for access to UniSA (and ERME Lab) infrastructure, and a mobility grant scheme which can be used to fund placement of people from industry in our lab (our people from our lab into industry) for up to 12 months.

We welcome opportunities to co-develop research projects with industry partners, please contact us to discuss –  potential ways to fund projects include:

PhD Students

If you are thinking about doing a PhD, have a strong academic background in marine science or engineering and want to pursue a career in marine environmental engineering, then please contact us. Currently, we have several projects we would like to match with PhD students if we can find the right people to join our group:

  • Developing an industrial-ecological (systems) model for metal and rare earth element losses from a smelter into an adjacent marine ecosystem
  • (Marine) ecosystem effects of metal contamination
  • Artificial structures as refugia for marine invertebrates
  • Development of rapid ecotoxicology methods
  • Social licence to operate and effective social media strategies for the energy and resources sectors

These projects are associated with ongoing projects in the group so we have funding to help support the research but students will need to cover tuition fees and living allowances  etc. (see list below for potential sources for  funding this at UniSA and elsewhere).  Students will need an  excellent academic record to be competitive for this funding.

We are also happy to discuss other project ideas that might fit within our lab, especially if it also connects across a multi-disciplinary collaboration at UCL and/or UniSA. We have a successful record of this, with recent ERME Lab students working with supervisors in UCL geography and Chemical Engineering. Similarly, there are potentially a range of collaborators we could work with at UniSA and, indeed, students based here will normally be assigned a panel of supervisors from across different disciplines, which will often include industry co-supervisors.  There are also some other fantastic schemes at UniSA for PhD students to link with industry, including the Partnership Intern Program.

In terms of funding PhD Student positions – see the UniSA and UCL Doctoral School pages, but some of the opportunities relevant to working with us include

For International Students:

For Australian Students:

MSc Students

Students undertaking either the MSc in Global Management of Natural Resources or MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems both do research projects in Adelaide as part of the degrees.  Craig has supervised a number of projects for these MSc, mainly in the area of Social Licence to Operate. Often, but not always, projects are linked to industry partners.  Craig could also supervise projects in the environmental science space; for example, associated with our project on marine contamination at Port Pirie.

Available scholarships and bursaries for each of these courses are available at respective course websites

Honours Students

Potentially, Craig can supervise Honours research projects for students enrolled at UniSA. The most likely degree for this is the Bachelor of Sustainable Ecosystems (Honours), which is an add-on (research focussed) year for people who have a Bachelors degree in Science or similar; note this fourth year (with a substantial research component) is the normal pre-requisite for entry into a PhD at UniSA.  Please contact Craig if this is of interest to you – we have a number of smaller research projects associated with our Port Pirie project that would make for good Honours projects for someone with an interest in marine pollution.

Research Fellows and Industry Mobility Placement

Currently, we do not have any available funding for post-docs.  Of course, we are always happy to talk to people who wish to apply to external agencies to work with us and to help with this however we can.

We can also host researchers from industry who may benefit from working with (and bring something to) our group for a sabbatical break or period of dedicated research. We have excellent facilities and provide an opportunity to reconnect with the academic environment of two world class universities in UCL and UniSA. In particular, for businesses with a substantial base in South Australia the Futures Industries Accelerator Mobility Grants  is an excellent a way of supporting this, with potentially very little direct costs to your business.

If you are interested in working with us, please contact Craig:

UCL Engineering in Australia

Building X, 2-03, Futures Industries Institute (MLK-40),

University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus

GPO Box 2471 Adelaide SA 5001

Tel: +61 8 8302 3356   Email:  c.styan@ucl.ac.uk

 

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