Miss Christina Thiele BSc (Hons), MSc

Postgraduate research student

Christina completed her undergraduate degree in Environmental Science at the University of Sussex. During that time, she developed an interest in anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems – mainly human-induced pollution. She then embarked on an MSc in Marine Biology at Bangor University to broaden her knowledge in marine ecology and animal behaviour.

Christina is a qualified divemaster and has experience in monitoring biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Thailand using SCUBA. Coral reef conservation and maintenance of artificial reefs were part of her job when she lived in Thailand. She gained some teaching experience at college and university level in data management and Geographical Information Systems during a conservation project in a Honduran cloud forest.

Research

Publications

Teaching

Contact

Research interests

I am interested in a broad range of topics from anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems and how those impacts affect humans in return, to conservation science, marine ecology and Geographical Information Systems.

For my undergraduate dissertation, I assessed levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in intertidal sediment. For my MSc thesis, I researched the effect of tidal light variation on the behaviour of the common starfish Asterias rubens. I have also been involved in a small-scale project assessing the health of artificial reefs compared to natural coral reefs in an area of high human (diver) pressure.

I chose this PhD project for its interdisciplinary nature and because marine plastic pollution is an issue I feel passionate about.

PhD Supervision

Dr. Malcolm Hudson (main supervisor), Prof David Coggon, Prof Stuart Harrad (University of Birmingham), Dr Chris Hauton, Dr Antony Jensen, Prof Andrea Russell

MPhil/PhD research

Microplastics in the marine environment and possible risks to human health.

This work is funded by the Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Training Scheme/SMMI, the Faculty of Engineering andn the Environment EPSRC Doctoral Training Grant with additional research costs covered by the Blue Marine Foundation.

Research projects

Microplastics in the marine environment and possible risks to human health.

Marine microplastic pollution is ubiquitous and possibly harms marine organisms and humans. Working together with the Blue Marine Foundation in their efforts to restore the Solent native oyster population, the PhD project is going to assess microplastic body burden of the native oyster Ostrea edulis. Further to this, the effects of microplastic ingestion by marine bivalves on those organisms will be investigated. The third part to this PhD project is to find out how humans might be affected through consumption of marine organisms that previously ingested microplastics.

Research group

Centre for Environmental Sciences

Affiliate research group

Centre for Environmental Sciences

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Article

Thiele, C. J., Hudson, M., & Russell, A. (2019). Evaluation of existing methods to extract microplastics from bivalve tissue: adapted KOH digestion protocol improves filtration at single-digit pore size. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 142, 384-393. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.03.003

I demonstrate on the GIS modules ENVS2008 and ENVS6033. In addition, as a summer activity, I teach entry level GIS as well as field data collection in a cloud forest in Honduras for Operation Wallacea.

Miss Christina Thiele
Engineering, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton. SO17 1BJ United Kingdom

Room Number: 25/2019

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