ME(RAN)
Everything on this website is me. It might be put through some sort of filter, but it’s my thoughts and my experience.
A few years ago, I would never have considered having a website that was my own. It seemed self absorbed. Pretentious. But now, I actually feel like I have a few things to say that people might be interested in. Maybe I’ve matured. I also thought that it would be a good way to practice writing and have neat little references to ideas I talk about a lot. I also thought that it might be fun. So here I am.
So, who am I?
You can see my professional profile on LinkedIn. The information on this website also gives plenty of insight into my work. At a more personal level, well, I guess we’re just going to have to meet.
If you’re interested, you can read my motivation letter to SLU that was an attachment to my application to become a LivsID. I wouldn’t necessarily take this as good template: I was in the fortunate position where I was the only applicant, the people assessing the application knew me and I thus wanted to give them an even deeper insight into me, and I knew that I needed to address a few key issues that related to the LivsID application as a whole and not necessarily just the ‘me’ part of it (this letter was more part of our application to the LivsID program than it was to be accepted by the uni as a PhD candidate). That said, my over-riding principle was to focus on ‘what can I offer you’, not ‘why this job would be great for me’.
I’m on numerous public websites:
This is a short blurb, written by me in the third person (talk about pretentious!) in June 2023 for a presentation to European national sugar beet grower organisation representatives:
“William English was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Agricultural Science from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in May 2023. His thesis had the title “Long-term post-harvest field storage of sugar beet”. Currently employed at NBR Nordic Beet Research – the national sugar beet research institute of Sweden and Denmark – his current research continues to focus on the post-harvest aspects of the sugar beet crop, as well as questions in precision agriculture and the digitisation of agriculture. Larger ongoing projects include: storage and the soil microbiome, modelling of the sugar beet field storage system environment, and sugar beet yield modelling.”
And one from October 2025 in point form, for the Swedish National Space Agency and SWEO2025:
- PhD in Agricultural Science from Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet (SLU), 2023, with a focus on the post-harvest storage of the sugar beet crop.
- Currently employed at Hushållningssällskaptet Skåne in their R&D team, with the major focus of digitalisation of agriculture.
- This includes the SNSA supported project “Optimera skördeprognoser med satellitdata.”
- Grew up under the Milky Way in the clear skies of rural Australia.