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Graduate Prizes 2020: Annie wins the Nick Bird Award 2020

Posted 17 December 2020

The 2020 recipient of the Nick Bird Award has been named as BSc (Hons) Geography and Environmental Management graduate Annie Marschalek.

The annual award is given to those whose dissertations are of a high academic standard and include data collection and analysis that has potential value for wider use by farmers, farming companies or agricultural businesses. Annie’s study focused on using a passive sampling method to measure ammonia travel from broiler farms, and the management methods that impact this.

Much of Annie’s knowledge that helped her to write her dissertation was garnered during her placement year at Alltech E-CO2.

Annie shared: “The company produces carbon footprints for individual farms, which are then used by retailers to reduce their carbon footprints across their whole supply chain.?

“Having spent a lot of my placement year analysing data and creating visualisations, I was able to use the skills I learnt from doing this and apply it to the data I gathered as part of my dissertation. I also developed my presentation skills during my placement year, which helped as a few of my modules required presentations as part of the assessment.”

Annie’s passion lies in sustainability on farms with her own family farm focused on being as environmentally friendly as possible. Annie commented: “Working on my home farm enables me to combine my two passions: agriculture and the environment.

“In the future I would love to combine these passions by aiding the agricultural industry to reduce its environmental impacts, and even potentially see agriculture being used to mitigate against climate change.

“Eventually I plan on a career in sustainable agriculture, helping farmers improve their farming practices to improve both their profits and their environmental credentials.”