Malcolm Coull

I come from a background in soils (I studied Soil Science at the University of Aberdeen) and help to maintain the National Soils Database of Scotland and the National Soil Archive. The Institute continues to try and make both its data and samples more accessible to everybody, and I am in the process of working towards making our datasets compliant with the INSPIRE directive along with my colleagues Allan Lilly and David Donnelly.

 

I have two main personal research interests. The first is in making 'technical' soils: using things which are normally sent to landfill, like construction waste and compost, to make substances which do the same jobs for us as real soils - for example growing plants, building on, and filtering pollutants. I work on this along with my colleague Luke Beesley.

 

My other interest is in trying to relate environmental data to the spread and survival of diseases in the environment. I am trying to design a system to collect data to help in the early detection of the symptoms of Johnes disease in cattle, and work with my colleagues Eulyn Pagaling, Lisa Avery and Rupert Hough on anti-microbial resistance (AMR) in Scottish soils.