New PhD student Samuel Morsbach will study off-shore installations
Samuel Morsbach is a new PhD student at the Department of Marine Sciences. Using ecosystem models and other tools, he will explore how off shore installations like wind power plants can affect the biological diversity in the sea. In his free time he likes scuba diving. Another interest is hiking, especially on the Höga kusten where he has spent many summers.
What are you going to do here?
"The topic of my PhD is the impact of offshore based installations on biodiversity. That can be wind power plants or multi-purpose infrastructure further integrating, for example, aqua culture. Probably, I won´t be doing much field work, but I will mainly incorporate existing data into ecosystem models and other analyzing tools. The overall concept is clear, and now I will spend the next six months planning the details."
"My PhD is part of the Mistra project Co-creating Better Blue. Focus of the project is to develop new forms of collaboration between researchers, authorities and various stakeholders across the Swedish blue economy, for a better and mre sustainable ocean management. My doctoral work will provide data and scientific knowledge to the project. I am very interested in the human – sea interaction, and knowing how my research results will be used is an important driver for me."
What did you do before?
"This June I finished my master's thesis at the Geomar Institute at the University of Kiel. It was about how commercial fishing can affect the biogeochemical cycles in the Western Baltic Sea. The background is that fish bind up carbon and when stocks are fished down it affects the carbon cycle in the sea. By applying an existing ecosystem model, we were able to show that more sustainable fisheries management not only results in pronouncedly higher catches, but further increases the amount of carbon being available to long-term sequestration processes."
What do you do in your free time?
"I really like scuba diving and during my master's in Kiel I was training scientific diving. More, I like all kinds of outdoor activities, especially hiking. My father has a cabin on the High Coast and I have been there many times and hiked a lot on the trails in Skuleskogen and on Skuleberget."
"I also like music and I play the cello. In practice it might not happen that often and I haven't brought the cello here yet. But I will try to find time to play, I think it is a good way to calm you down."
Something else you want to share?
"It´s great here at Tjärnö with the sea right in front of your door step. I've already got a good community feeling with collaborations between researchers and different projects. Now I'm looking forward to meet and get to know all the new people over the next four years!"
Interview: Susanne Liljenström