Inaugural Lecture of Professor Sami Ullah

Join Professor Sami Ullah for his Inaugural Lecture, hosted at the University of Birmingham's Edgbaston Campus (Aston Webb Building, Main Lecture Theatre, Block C) on Thursday 26 March 2025. 

This is a hybrid event: you can register for virtual access via Zoom here. 

The Good and Grim Forms of Nitrogen: Tackling a Pollution Enigma

Nitrogen (N) availability modulates crop production in agriculture and carbon capture in natural ecosystems. Humans have perturbed the N cycle via excessive synthetic fertilizers input into soils. Crops available N is viewed as the “good” N. However, excessive input results in transforming the good N into the “grim” forms polluting air, water and soil.  For example, agriculture contributes ~70% of the anthropogenic source nitrous oxide emission.

Although referred to as the “laughing gas”, nitrous oxide emission into air is a grim matter contributing to global warming. Above all, parts of the N cycling processes are highly enigmatic to measure making it very difficult to find optimum pollution solutions. I will highlight latest methodological developments together with process understandings of soil N cycling in support of policy actions for constraining the impacts of the grim N forms!

Professor Sami Ullah started his research on the issues of N pollution in the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial valley at Louisiana State University during his MS and PhD degrees (1999-2005) as a Fulbright Scholar. His focus was to harness the power of forested wetlands (swamps) in retaining run-off N from croplands for protecting water quality. He continued this line of research at Rutgers University in New Jersey as a Research Fellow, where he investigated whether the water quality benefits of riparian forests come at an air quality cost via increased nitrous oxide emissions.

In 2006, he moved to McGill University as a Research Fellow where he worked on quantifying greenhouse gas fluxes from forests. His work integrated the contribution of “cryptic forested swamps” to the net greenhouse gas fluxes of forested landscapes.

Tracking N from croplands into rivers, Sami moved to Lancaster University, UK in 2009 as a Senior Researcher where he assessed the role of riverbeds in N pollution attenuation. As an Assistant Professor at Keele University (2011-16), he advanced a field-based ¹⁵N tracing method for measuring denitrification: a process that converts reactive N to non-pollutant dinitrogen gas to address uncertainties in the N budgets of terrestrial ecosystems under the UKRI-NERC Macronutrients Cycle Programme.

He joined the University of Birmingham in 2017 as an Associate Professor at a time when the University of Birmingham Institute of Forest Research’s Free Air CO₂ Enrichment (BIFoR-FACE) facility for mature forests was launched. He was then promoted to a Chair in Biogeochemistry in 2021 and continues his research on the role of N availability in modulating carbon capture in temperate forests under elevated CO₂ enrichment at BIFoR-FACE, developing new methods for soil N cycling and investigating the impacts of land use and nano-fertilizers on N losses under regenerative agriculture. His research extends beyond the UK into Europe, North America and East Asia in support of policies for constraining the environmental impacts of the grim N forms! Prof. Ullah is fascinated by the elusive nature of soil N cycling processes and on a light note quoting that “It’s time to halve N input into the land and constrain the production of grim forms even if it’s the laughing gas”

Everyone is welcome to this event, and all are invited to join Sami after the lecture for refreshments in the Lapworth Museum.