Catherine Baxendale

I am responsible for providing postgraduate Training leadership, co-ordination and related administrative support for the ENVISION Doctoral Training and Placement Programme.

Previous roles:

Innovation Fellow within the Centre for Global Eco-Innovation, where I supported Graduate Researchers working with regional SMEs on low carbon innovation projects. As part of this role, I lead a Working Group between LU, local SMEs and the city council to reduce single use plastics on campus and in the city. I was also the lead organiser for Eco-I 2019 conference.

Before joining CGE in 2018, I spent 4 years working in Research Engagement, initially on the RCUK funded School University Partnership Initiative and later within the central UK Student Recruitment and Outreach team. In this role, I organised and coordinated research engagement events and activities between Lancaster University researchers and schools, with the aim of inspiring the next generation of researchers. Having a research background, I can see the importance of engaging school students in research, both for the students and the researchers.

I completed my PhD studying relationships between plant traits and soil microbial communities in hay meadows based in the Plant-Soil Ecology Laboratory in LEC in 2013.  This project was part of the pan-European project VITAL working with 7 partners across Europe. After completing my PhD I worked on the ERC funded ForestPrime project as a research support technician.