19 Facts About Jacqui Horswell

Jacqueline Horswell is an English-born New Zealand environmental microbiologist who specialises in research into the waste society produces, its effect on the environment, and how it can be managed.

Jacqui Horswell's work focuses particularly on measuring the effect of microbial and chemical contaminants in sewage sludge and the safe reuse of biosolids as fertilizer by the planting of native trees to filter and inactivate pollutants from the sludge and the use of vermiculture.

Jacqui Horswell is involved in consultation with communities in New Zealand and has contributed to official guidelines for the management of biosolids.

Jacqui Horswell's research has provided information about soil microbial communities for forensic science using microbial cultures and DNA sequencing.

Since 2018, Jacqui Horswell has been a lecturer at Massey University.

Jacqui Horswell completed an undergraduate biology degree at the University of Bath and PhD in microbiology at the University of Aberdeen in 1997.

Jacqui Horswell moved to New Zealand in 1997 and took up a position as Scientist, Environmental Health Effects, at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research.

In July 2018 Jacqui Horswell left ESR, and her role as Programme Manager for CIBR to become a Senior Lecturer in Water and Waste in the school of Health Sciences at Massey University, Wellington.

Jacqui Horswell applied this knowledge early in her time with ESR, in particular determining the impact of heavy metals in sewage sludge on microbes in the soil.

In 2000 Jacqui Horswell was commissioned to do a report for the New Zealand Ministry of Health, Ministry for the Environment and Industry on the bioavailability of organic forms of arsenic to plants, and ultimately people in the soil-plant-human route, as a result of its use in the treatment of timber.

In 2017, Jacqui Horswell participated in research looking at the possible use of biosolids to reforest areas where the soil had been degraded.

Jacqui Horswell participated in research led by ESR scientist Jennifer Prosser in 2014 that explored the possibilities of growing plants with antiseptic properties in soils contaminated with waste, mitigating the release of microbial contaminants into the environment.

Jacqui Horswell said it was the first time this resource had come from the laboratory to the land and it was a step toward the restoration of the lake that had involved the whole community and research students from the USA.

Jacqui Horswell has been involved in studies to evaluate the effectiveness of vermicomposting in reducing pathogens in biosolids while still retaining beneficial nutrients and organic carbon.

In 2015 Jacqui Horswell noted that CIBR and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, had begun collaborating with the community and the Gisborne District Council to review the effectiveness of the Biological Trickling Filter that had been in use in the area since 2011.

Jacqui Horswell was part of the team that wrote this document to provide insight into how the traditional constructs of tapu and noa could be considered in biowaste management, in particular for biosolids.

The paper, co-authored by Jacqui Horswell, did not see landfilling of biosolids as a viable long-term option and determined that the best approach was to identify the scale of the problem, explore opportunities to work together and assess feasible scenarios that could inform the implementation of an effective strategy.

Jacqui Horswell led research that investigated using biosensors to detect chemicals or inorganic poisons in urine and this received international praise because it could help forensic laboratories speedily determine whether or not poison was a cause of death.

In 2004 Jacqui Horswell's presentation Development of bacterial biosensors to detect poisons and drugs in toxicological samples was a certificate winner for the Best Overall Oral Presentation at the Symposium of the Australia and New Zealand Forensic Science Society.