International Seaweed Symposium 2025

Maxine Canvin

Newcastle University

In May, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the 25th International Seaweed Symposium (ISS) 2025 in Victoria, Canada. This was made possible with the generous support of the Challenger Society Student Travel Award, for which I am grateful.

ISS was an exciting hub of seaweed science that brought together international researchers from both academia and industry. As I near the end of my PhD journey, this conference couldn’t have come at a better time, offering the perfect platform to present my final data chapter and begin networking for postdoctoral opportunities.

As part of the Carbon Cycling session, I gave a 15-minute presentation on “The Burial of Carbon in Kelp-Farm Associated Sediments”. Here, I explored the carbon stocks and their potential sources within sediments associated with a small-scale, temperate kelp farm in the UK. Questions from delegates following my talk sparked insightful discussions, and I was particularly excited to be approached by one attendee who suggested I apply to a postdoctoral position with their company working on Blue Carbon in Canada.


The was my first time attending ISS, and I found it incredibly welcoming, intellectually stimulating and inspiring. I left Victoria with a renewed excitement for seaweed research, greater confidence in presenting my work to international audiences, and a growing network of passionate seaweed enthusiasts from across the globe.

Profile:
Maxine Canvin is a PhD researcher specialising in the role of seaweed aquaculture in carbon cycling and climate change mitigation. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at Newcastle University, in collaboration with the Marine Biological Association (MBA).
This research, funded by WWF, focuses on quantifying the contribution of kelp farming to Blue Carbon ecosystem services. This includes measuring the release of particulate and dissolved organic carbon and assessing the storage of kelp-derived carbon in sediments associated with kelp farms. She employs various techniques, such as lead-dating, elemental analysis and environmental DNA (eDNA), to monitor for carbon sequestration potential.
Maxine has published in Reviews in Aquaculture and the Journal of Applied Phycology, on the carbon dynamics of seaweed farming, and contributed to a national government report on Blue Carbon.