News.

March 2025: Lauch of OxEarth

​The University of Oxford is establishing a new multidisciplinary research initiative for sustainable natural resources. The Oxford EARTH programme (Ensuring equitable Access to sustainable Resources for a Thriving Habitat) aims to address the challenges in natural resources underpinning the net zero energy transition, including critical raw materials needed for the generation, storage and transmission of renewable energy, and the social license needed to extract them from the Earth. Supported by £3.4 million in funding from the University of Oxford, this five-year programme will position Oxford as a global leader in this research area through collaborative efforts with a diverse range of external stakeholders. The interdisciplinary research team spans nine departments and faculties - Earth Sciences, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, Geography, Economics, Law, Materials, and the Saïd Business School - bringing together expertise from across the university to drive a truly holistic approach to resourcing the sustainable energy transition.

As part of OxEARTH, Julie Cosmidis (co-I) will be recruiting a 5 year postdoctoral fellow to investigate new engineering biology strategies for microbial resource recovery, in collaboration with Prof. Harrison Steel (Department of Engineering Science).

January 2025: Delivery of our automated Raman spectromicroscope 

This instrument will allow us to perform high-throughput characterization of (bio)minerals forming  in situ in mineralization experiments and microbial cultures

April 2024: Start of the ERC project Biofacts

Learn more about the project here

March 2024: Listen to Julie's interview for Radio-Canada (in French)

Julie is talking about recently published research describing a compilation of more than 4000 brains preserved in the archeological record​