 I'm Kate Hand. I'm from Aberdeenshire in Scotland, and I'm in my third year of a PhD at the Open University in the School of Earth, Environment and Ecosystem Science, and I'm researching urban forestry. My research is all about the trees in our towns and cities, so looking at if we can find ways to better measure these trees, to better understand the benefits they provide us with. Those benefits are things like air pollution removal, cooling our air, and combating climate change. So what motivates me to do this research is the majority of the world's population now live in urban areas, and where we live has a huge effect on our day-to-day life. And I think there's a massive potential for trees to use trees to improve our urban areas, which not only benefits the environment, but also makes our towns and cities happier and healthier places for us to live our lives in. So I really hope to be involved with the Marston Vale Trust and help track these trees and measure how they're growing. As a postgraduate researcher at the Open University, I feel it's a really supportive and friendly environment. It's a really great place to collaborate and engage with different people and get different ideas going.