Margaux Lognoul winner of the SSSB competition

Awards don't necessarily wait for years of experience. Proof of this is Margaux Lognoul, who has recently been named the winner of the SSSB (Soil ScienceSociety of Belgium) competition as Young Soil Scientist 2020. This young doctoral student from Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech participated in this competition by presenting the results of her study on the effect of meteorological factors and agricultural practices on nitrous oxide emissions from soils. Two major aspects were selected for her distinction: the very high quality of her work and the way she disseminated her results to the general public and more particularly to primary and secondary school students.

A particularly topical subject

Soil science is a subject that affects everyone's life, but no one can necessarily explain how it all works. This is precisely the purpose of this SSSB prize and Margaux Lognoul's work fits in particularly well with it. Indeed, her study focused in particular on the effect of temperature and topsoil disturbance on N²O emissions from agricultural soils. In other words: demonstrating the effect of man on soils when it comes to dealing with climate change.

Professors Marc Aubinet and Bernard Heinesch supervised the different phases of Margaux Lognoul's study work, within the BIODYNE research axis. They join Pr. Cornelis, President of the SSSB, in emphasizing that Margaux has always been very involved in the popularization of its results. In parallel to her participation in international congresses, she has been careful to disseminate the results of her research to the general public, thus an interactive web documentary * has been created in partnership with VivaSciences, the programme for the dissemination of science and technology of the Faculty of Gembloux.

As for Margaux Lognoul's present, she is expected to defend her thesis in July 2020. Moreover, she now puts her knowledge at the direct service of the agricultural world since she works as Communication Manager within the non-profit organization Protect'eau.

The web documentary is accessible on the link :
https://www.gembloux.uliege.be/cms/c 4670340/en/web-documentary-interactive-microbial-soil-respiration