Sharon Chebet

PhD student Agroscope and ETHZ

Agroscope Reckenholz
Soil Quality and Soil Use

Reckenholzstrasse 191
8046 Zürich

Email:

Research Interests

What does it take to feed the world? That most countries and especially the third world countries are grappling with this question makes it an urgent issue. My two senses on this matter are that, we cannot talk about food security without looping in one of the essential factors of production i.e., healthy soils. We are living in an error whereby prolonged drought, erratic rainfall, etc. has become the norm and subsequently jeopardizes food production. Therefore, in order to contribute positively to alleviating the named challenges, I have embarked on a journey in my Ph.D. research to “quantify the role of soil structure - soil biota interactions in maintaining soil functioning” which consequently has an impact on ecosystem functioning. Soil structure is one of the primary assets of healthy soil; contributing to water retention, infiltration, gas exchange, soil organic matter and nutrient cycling, root penetration and susceptibility to erosion, and compaction. My project is financed by seed money from Agroscope where I am employed under the supervision of Dr. Florian Walder and Dr.Johannes Koestel. Additionally, I am hosted at ETHZ and supervised by Prof. Johan Six. The major objectives of the project are: 1). Use existing data to assess the association between soil structure and biota (monitoring data) 2).Explore the role of soil biota in the formation and recovery of soil structure in the field (incubation) 3). Carry out a greenhouse experiment highlighting the role of soil structure in soil functioning. All these will be carried out in selected Long-term experiments (LTEs) at Agroscope Reckenholz. The soils will be incubated in the field for a minimum period of 2 years and subsequently tomographic x-ray scanning will be performed repeatedly on the incubated soil columns.

Education/Work Experience

2023-2027: PhD student
Agroscope & ETHZ, Switzerland

2020-2022: International Masters of science in soils and global change (IMSOGLO)
Ghent University, Belgium & Aarhus University, Denmark

2019-2020: Soil scientist/Agronomist
Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), Kenya

2014-2018: BSc. Management of agroecosystems and environment,
The University of Nairobi, Kenya