Cookies on the Sylva Foundation website: We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.
If you continue without changing your settings, we’ll assume that you are happy to accept all cookies on the Sylva Foundation website.
However, if you would like to, you can change your cookie settings at any time.
Oxford-Sylva Scholar Kirsty Monk conducting fieldwork mapping fungal cords at Wytham Woods in 2012
Congratulations to Dr Kirsty Monk, our first Oxford-Sylva scholar (2010-14), who passed her DPhil viva voce last week!
Kirsty studied the role of cord-forming fungi in British woodlands at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, and has since started pursuing a career as a science teacher.
We will make available the full thesis in the near future.
We are delighted that Oxford-Sylva scholar Louise Hill features in the University of Oxford 2013-14 Annual Review. Interviewed for the publication, Louise — who is studying the environmental impact of ash dieback disease on woodland for her DPhil in Plant Sciences — commented:
“‘I was in Borneo with very patchy internet when I received an email informing me I’d won the scholarship. It was brilliant – all my hopes were resting on it. In this current challenging funding environment, it was a lifeline.”
Louise Hill, Oxford-Sylva scholar, in Wytham Woods. Photo John Cairns
Sylva Foundation Chief Executive Dr Gabriel Hemery said:
“We base all our work on sound evidence, so investing in top-quality science is an important strand in our strategy. The scholarship allows us to foster champion environmental scientists of the future through a close working relationship with a leading university, meaning that our work will have a lasting legacy.”
We are currently fundraising towards the Oxford-Sylva scholarship. If you are interested in finding out more about the scholarship, and how you may be able to support it, please click here.
Ensuring forests are resilient is a key part of the mission of the Sylva Foundation, which is why we invest in promoting and conducting research on sustainable forest management.
Louise Hill, Oxford-Sylva scholar, in Wytham Woods. Photo John Cairns
For the fourth academic year in a row, Sylva has supported a DPhil student in the Department of Plant Sciences with the Oxford–Sylva Foundation Graduate Scholarship. Current Oxford-Sylva Scholar Louise Hill, now in the second year of her DPhil, was interviewed recently for the university’s major fundraising campaign Oxford Thinking. She talks about her research, which focusses on ash dieback and its ecological consequences in British woodlands, and what it meant to receive our support. The full interview is available to read on the Oxford Thinking campaign pages – read here
Together with the University of Oxford, we are keen to raise funds to support more scholars of the highest calibre. Currently we meet the costs of the scholarship from our own core funds but this is sustainable only in the medium term. Our aim is work with other donors to secure the scholarship in perpetuity. We welcome expressions of interest from individuals or companies who would like to find out more about the scholarship and how they could support it.