Undergraduate student research opportunities
The Horse Microbiome Research Group would be pleased to host undergraduate students from the University of Surrey with an interest in our ongoing research projects over the summer vacation for a period of 6 – 10 weeks.
Overview
The research experience will enhance your CV, and six weeks can be counted as part of EMS for BVMSci students. Student interested in this opportunity must obtain funding to cover subsistence and laboratory costs; please see below the current funding calls that are open and would be applicable for students to work.
Throughout the academic year we may have opportunities for undergraduate students from the School of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Biosciences to aid researchers within the group in their laboratory work. This will contribute to ongoing research projects that are externally funded and supervised by a post-doctoral researcher (e.g., Research Fellow) on the project. These opportunities will be during term-time and the working week (Monday – Friday).
Veterinary Student Scholar Program – Morris Animal Foundation
The Morris Animal Foundation Veterinary Student Scholar program is offering a chosen Veterinary Student Scholar an award of $5,500 as a stipend to support a chosen research project. The research project must sit within any relevant feline, canine, equid or wildlife health topic.
Applicants must be currently enrolled in an accredited veterinary medicine program. The School of Veterinary Medicine is accredited by RCVS and EAEVE.
The application portal opens on May 21, 2025, and closes on July 2, 2025.
Please contact Dr Joy Leng to discuss this exciting opportunity at least 4 weeks before the deadline passes. If you enquire past this deadline, please note we may not be able to support an application.
World Horse Welfare Veterinary Undergraduate Bursary Scheme – 2026
The World Horse Welfare Organisation is offering a chosen 3rd year Veterinary Student an award of £4,000 as a stipend to support a chosen research project. The research project must support the health and welfare advancements in thoroughbred racehorses.
The application portal is open and closes on the 31st of January.
Please consider the Christmas University of Surrey closure periods impact on the submission deadline.
More information is located on the World Horse Welfare website - https://www.worldhorsewelfare.org/.
Please contact Dr Joy Leng to discuss this exciting opportunity at least 4 weeks before the deadline passes. If you enquire past this deadline, please note we may not be able to support an application.
Contact
Please contact Dr Joy Leng for more information or to express your interest: horsemicrobiomeresearch@surrey.ac.uk.
Dr Joy Leng
Research Fellow
Biography
Joy completed a bachelor's degree in Biology at the university of Manchester in 2010. She then went on to study for a master's degree in Advanced Sciences at the University of Liverpool, graduating in 2011. Her research project focused on the effect of rearing temperature on the adult size of Daphnia magna. After this she spent a short time working as a field assistant for the University of Liverpool collecting data for a study of the natural immunity of a wild population of bank voles and field mice in forests on the Wirral. Joy completed her PhD in 2015 studying the effect of equine grass sickness on horse gut bacteria and metabolism at the University of Reading. This project utilised proton nuclear magnetic spectroscopy (1H NMR) to profile biofluid metabolites and next generation sequencing to characterise faecal bacterial populations. During a number of Post-doctoral positions she developed a fermentation model of the equine hindgut, utilised a model of the chicken caeca to model transfer of anti-microbial resistant genes between isolates of Eschericia coli and linked the development of the horse gut microbiome in early life with health and performance in later life. Currently she is working on an Alborada Trust funded project to better understand the origins of the equine gut microbiome by collecting samples from both foal and mare. Further to this the project will utilise the fermentation model of the equine gut to simulate changes to the foal gut caused by antibiotics and aim to reduce these effects using mitigating strategies such as pro- and pre-biotics.
The common theme within all of the research Joy has completed has been microbiomes, whether this be of the gut, skin or fermentation models. Her main tool to analyse these microbiomes is 16S rRNA sequencing and she is proficient in using command line based programmes, QIIME2 and R to analyse and visualise sequencing data. Previously, she has done this by utilising external partners using the Illumina sequencing platform but more recently she has been using Oxford Nanopore Technology's MinION platform for rapid sequencing of both 16S rRNA amplicons and shotgun metagenomics.