Lindsey TodmanLindsay Todman took the MSc in Hydrology for Environmental Management in 2008-2009. She then joined the Environmental and Water Resource Engineering group to undertake a PhD.

She took the MSc because she “had a general background in various aspects of engineering but wanted to develop a focused skill set that was relevant to current challenges in the UK and around the world”.  

“At the start of the programme I did not intend to take a PhD, but the MSc was the first time that I’d applied my skills in mathematics to understanding complex natural processes and by the end of the year I had realised how useful these tools are to help further our understanding. Plus, I enjoyed using my skills in this way.”

In her subsequent PhD research she went on to develop a model of water flow through soil from a novel irrigation membrane, which desalinates water at the same time as irrigating. She was awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize fellowship to continue her research as a postdoc.

After that, she worked as postdoc at Rothamsted Research for 4 years, studying various aspects of soils and agricultural systems including a project looking at the resilience of soil microbial communities to drought and sudden rewetting. She is now a lecturer in Agricultural Modelling at the University of Reading. Her research focuses on the resilience or agricultural systems to sudden weather changes, in particular the role of soils in buffering these stresses.

“My time at Imperial deepened my curiosity in the world around me and equipped me with knowledge, tools and approaches to try to understand complex natural processes better.”