Dr Jason Newton he/him
Head, Stable Isotope Laboratory
Mission Priority Areas
Diversity is crucial for creating and sustaining scientific excellence. I am really pleased that DiveIn has been successful, as an EDI head I welcome its inauguration and I am intrigued how it will work in practice.
I am naturally aligned to NERC rather than EPSRC, however stable isotopes can trace many chemical processes - a good example of an interdisciplinary measure.
My passion is applying stable isotopes to answer big and small questions in science. My remit at SUERC is largely NERC-centric, covering mainly ecology but also earth and planetary sciences.
I would like to form collaborations and projects out of my usual comfort zone, and this is the ideal opportunity, given stable isotope techniques are inevitably transdisciplinary.
Recently, rather than use isotopes to track ecological processes, I have been using the isotope compositions of organisms to track environmental processes – e.g. using lichen isotopes to track air quality or insect isotopes to track mining operations. Stable isotopes are brilliant tracers, and my interests involve developing new applications, but I will need collaborators for this!
My graduated PhD students are mostly doing post-doctoral work, however my work with the National Environmental Isotope facility for 20 years means I’ve informally supervised well over a hundred students and researchers. As well as empowering these visitors to complete their theses/projects, many are inspired by this experience, continue their interest in stable isotope ecology and offer further collaboration as they continue through academia, establishing their own isotope labs in several cases. Watching people grow like this is what keeps me going.
My commitment to EDI is unwavering; I have been running the EDI team at SUERC for around 4 years, having expanded the original Athena Swan Bronze award’s remit to promote equity among all protected characteristics at the Centre, and authoring a Good Working Practice guide for SUERC.
