The Biospheric Microplastics Research Cluster (BMRC) aims to address critical gaps in the microplastics research landscape, notably the association between environmental exposure to microplastics through source, pathway, receptor relationships, and their potential to cause harm. Microplastic pollution is a considerable emerging health and ecological crisis on a global scale.
The BMRC brings together expertise from multiple disciplines, all of which play a crucial role in understanding the impact of microplastics on human and ecosystem health, expanding research excellence and enhancing teaching across the university landscape.
Meet the team involved with the cluster:
Dr Ben Williams: Senior Research Fellow: Air Quality Management Resource Centre
Ben is co-lead of the cluster. He has over 15 years experience in environmental sampling, measurement, analysis and apportionment of air pollution and other airborne components. His PhD focused on the development of a method for the source apportionment and mapping of fugitive PM from industrial facilities using geochemical fingerprinting and environmental forensic approaches.
Ben has worked on research projects for national and international research councils, national and local authorities and private organisations (as PI, Co-I and PDRA). He is currently PI of the UKRI funded Homes Under the Microscope study, an airborne microplastics co-creation and citizen science project, and is also developing airborne DNA collection approaches to aid conservation and biodiversity assessments.
Ben leads the Yr1 Analysing Environmental Change module and the Yr3 Practicing Waste Management Module within the Environmental Management BSc, and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate research projects. He regularly engages with media organisations in both Welsh and English.
Dr Stephanie Sargeant: Senior Lecturer – Environmental Science
Stephanie is the other co-lead for the cluster. Her main research interests are in marine microbial ecology, aquatic biogeochemistry and understanding the cycling of organic matter and nutrients in aquatic systems.
She also has research projects investigating the impact of microplastics on the environment and human health and in the application of environmental DNA (eDNA) for species monitoring and conservation.
She is passionate about supporting the next generation of environmental scientists, widening our scientific understanding of aquatic microbial ecology and working to provide solutions to environmental issues. She contributes to a number of environmental programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across UWE Bristol.
Dr Freya Radford: Senior Lecturer in Environmental Sciences (Marine)
Freya joined the team as a Biospheric Microplastics Research Fellow. Her research interests are in the quantification and impacts of emerging anthropogenic contaminants. She is particularly interested in microplastics and their presence across the environment from terrestrial to marine systems. This involves using novel extraction methods and a range of analytical techniques (FTIR and Raman microscopy, and GCMS) to identify and characterise these plastics. She is also interested in the ecotoxicological impacts of microplastics, particularly in combination with other external stressors.
Freya recently completed her PhD which focused on microplastic contamination in soils. This ranged from developing analytical methods for extracting microplastics from soils to quantifying and characterising microplastics in soils with a focus on sewage sludge as a source.
She also has experience working on microplastic projects in tropical seagrass systems and identifying microplastics in wastewater treatment plants.
This research cluster is funded through the Expanding Research Excellence scheme at UWE Bristol. The scheme aims to support and develop interdisciplinary, challenge-led research across the University. It is designed to bring together research clusters or networks that will work together to respond to challenges (local, regional, national, global) aligned with major research themes.