SW-GROW - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Engineering Lecturer, UHI Outer Hebrides Innse Gall

What you will be doing in the project? Project Managing the Project, arranging meetings, managing risk and contributing to the engineering aspects. Your favourite thing about seaweed? Its versatility - food, medicine, cosmetics, fertiliser etc.

Job Titles:

• Project Officer, Údarás Na Gaeltachta

What you will be doing in the project? I will be managing the communication and dissemination of the project, alongside assisting some associate partners or SME's in the seaweed sector here in Ireland. Your favourite thing about seaweed? I used to avoid seaweed at all costs when swimming in the sea, as I feared all the creatures hiding in the sea forest! However, now I can appreciate the habitat that seaweed gives to many sea creatures. I love the versatility of seaweed, and how it does not taste too strongly when added to cooked meals and gives a fantastic umami flavour. The health benefits of seaweed is one of my favourite things, from heart health, reducing cancer risk and packed full of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals- we should all be consuming more seaweed in our diet!

Job Titles:

• Owner and Director of TARI - Faroe Seaweed

What you will be doing in the project? In SW-Grow TARI-Faroe Seaweed will be cultivating the brown algal species Alaria esculenta and the red algal species Palmaria palmata. We will work on optimizing the quality of the produce by analysing microbiology in the seaweed tissue and also in the surrounding seawater. The seaweed tissue will be analysed for a wide variety of compounds including protein levels, vitamins, minerals, heavy metals, and bioactivity. TARI-Faroe Seaweed will take part in creating a DNA database by collecting samples from our seaweed farm and from natural populations in the Faroe Islands. One of the pilots in SW-Grow will be carried out in the Faroe Islands, and we will test if TARI-Faroe Seaweed's hatchery can be run on renewable energy alone. Your favourite thing about seaweed? I am very interested in seaweed species diversity. I like growing seaweeds and experimenting with different cultivation techniques. Cooking with seaweed has become an integrated part of my daily life, and I like eating seaweeds and giving it to my children because it is healthy and nutritious.

Job Titles:

• Postdoctoral Research Associate, UHI Outer Hebrides Innse Gall

What I will be doing in the project? By background I am a thermofludicist, which is a fancy way of saying that I'm interested in how heat and fluids move and interact with each other. I have spent quite a few years creating and watching gas bubbles! For SW-GROW, I have designed an experimental seaweed drying facility and will be investigating how to dry seaweed efficiently using renewable energies whilst also achieving product quality for the many different uses of seaweed.