Environmental Microbiology and Me!

Researcher profile: Karen Scott (@DrKarenScott)

As an environmental microbiologist with a biological background I didn't think I would end up working in a geography department. In fact thinking back to my childhood I never thought I would end up in academia, or geography come to that - to be honest my only memories of geography from my school days involved writing a news article on the Exxon Valdez oil spill and drawing a cross section of the Earth! Having always been fascinated by animals, I grew up wanting to work with them in some way or another (once my dad had burst my bubble about a career in bricklaying not being like an episode of ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’!).

I got a place on a BSc Animal Behaviour and Science course at Bishop Burton College in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which I thoroughly enjoyed. However, I found studying animals less engaging than I expected and instead was drawn towards modules assessing the impact of the environment on them. Developing my skills in this environmental sector made me re-evaluate the direction of my career.

Anaerobic workout in the lab

Once I’d completed my degree I got a job working in a microbiology laboratory testing a wide variety of samples ranging from fresh food to environmental water samples. It was a demanding job with long hours but it had its perks, such as free turkeys for the family at Christmas! After a year of working there I’d managed to save up enough money to cover the fees for a Masters degree. I joined the University of Hull Biological Sciences Department and spent a year assessing the effect of contaminated water on shore crab behaviour.

Thoroughly enjoying my year researching and writing I decided the research route was for me, and that’s when I started looking for PhDs. I picked up another microbiology role, similar to the previous one, while I hunted for a PhD and after a few months of looking I found one back at Hull based in Geography. The project investigated the ability of organic matter to decompose within the drainage system in the City of Hull, in particular studying the microbial community, and assessing if it could be increased in some way (outlined in my earlier blog post). Although the project was out of my area, it was cross disciplinary with biology so with a bit of extra background reading before starting, I was able to hit the ground running.

Nice day for fieldwork at Winscar 

After I completed my PhD, I commenced a six month research position in the department where I was split between two environmental projects. I'm now based in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds for the next 13 months working in moorland management and hydrology. The project enables me to expand my skill set within the environmental area, while allowing me the opportunity to get my teeth into some research within the department, which remains a great passion of mine. While I'm not sure if after this project’s completion I will take my career into industry or remain within the academic sector, I am excited by the opportunities for both that come my way.

An Unexpected (Academic) Journey

By Lucy Clarke (@DrLucyClarke)

As mentioned in my previous posts I am a fluvial geomorphologist. I am interested in the processes that operate on the Earth’s surface and especially those that occur in fluvial (or ‘watery’) environments, although at the moment I have moved into exploring frozen water, looking at glacial change in Antarctica (which I will blog more about in the coming year). So how did I come to be doing this?

Always happy to be on a river!

I can honestly say that working in academia wasn’t my childhood dream – I wanted to be a vet, but as I have an allergy to virtually all animal hair that was never a realistic occupation! The main reason for my lack of ambition in academia was because I didn’t realise it was even an option, I came from a family where no one had ever been to university so I didn’t know anything about how it worked or that people like me could make a career of it. But my parents were determined that myself and my sister would break this trend and get a degree and so through school it became my aim to go to university. Loving the outdoors and exploring different places, geography had always appealed to me, so I managed to win a position studying for a BSc degree in Geography at the University of Durham and going there changed everything for me. I absolutely loved doing my undergraduate degree and that is when my passion for physical geography really took hold, and it opened my eyes to all the possible options for my future that I had never considered before.

On finishing my degree I wanted to see some more of the world and so I won a place on a research Masters at the University of Otago in New Zealand and moved Down Under. My research specialised in sediment transport in rivers and used aerial photography and field techniques to explore spatial and temporal trends. This experience was amazing as I got to learn different geographical and surveying techniques, plus, writing a 40,000 word thesis gave me a good insight into the research process and all of this in one of the most impressive and beautiful places I’ve ever visited and which I was fortunate to explore thoroughly in the couple of years I lived there.

Once I had completed my thesis I took a circuitous route back to the UK, visiting new found friends in Australia and Canada for a few months before coming back to reality. On my first day back I checked the job websites and found an advertisement for a PhD at the University of Exeter using image analysis of experimental alluvial fans (see my blog post from 28 August 2013) supported by fieldwork in New Zealand – it sounded perfect for me and within a week of my return I had been down to the South West for an interview and was offered the PhD. And so I spent the next 4.5 years in Exeter; I got my PhD and during this time I took every opportunity to attend conferences, assist on field trips (in the UK and abroad), undertake teaching and generally make the most of my time as a postgraduate. I then worked in the department on a teaching and a research fellowship and realised that a career in academia was what I wanted to do.

Me and my PhD physical model - many hours were spent in the lab

Since then I have been on the early career researcher cycle, an increasingly common experience for ‘young’ academics trying to carve out a career. Some people are lucky enough to stay in the same institution or just move once before getting a permanent position but my path has followed a different route. I took a teaching lectureship at the University of Dundee, before moving back to my native Yorkshire for a postdoctoral position at the University of Hull for a couple of years and now I am based in Cambridge at the British Antarctic Survey – at least for the next 15 months. Although moving around so much can cause a certain amount of instability in my life, it has been a fantastic opportunity to gain experience of different institutions and I have made friends and colleagues in each place and through this developed research ideas that I am excited to progress in the future.

Come rain or shine it's great to get out in the field

So, my journey into academia may have been unexpected but I couldn’t be happier to be where I am now and wouldn’t be doing anything else! I have no regrets over my career (other than the usual academic regret of not having written enough papers, but I’m working on this!) and have had some amazing experiences that I wouldn’t change. I am still hopeful for the elusive permanent position and working hard to make it happen as soon as I can, but who knows where that will be. I have no idea where I will end up next, but I am excited to find out and I’ll keep you posted on my progress through the blog…

Overcoming Anglocentrism? Researching overseas

By Kirstie O'Neill (@KirstieJONeill)

What do we do as researchers?  I’m a post-doctoral research associate in the University of Hull’s Department of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences and I’m a social scientist.  This generally involves speaking to people as part of ‘doing’ research, although there are lots of research methods in social sciences which don’t involve directly speaking to people.  Here I’m writing about my experiences of ‘doing’ research outside of the UK, from a current project in Germany and some of my PhD research in Italy.  In particular, I’m thinking about how social scientists speak to people in other countries when they aren’t necessarily fluent in those languages.  

I never thought my A-level German would be of much use beyond school, but almost 18 years later I found myself refreshing my memory so that I could go to Germany to do a research project.  Part of that preparation involved a mountain biking holiday with my husband to the Black Forest where I found that I could remember more than ‘hello’ and could even hold a basic conversation, much to my surprise.

On returning from this, I swotted up so that I felt a bit more comfortable about living in Germany for almost a month to conduct interviews with green building businesses and policy makers in Germany, from Freiburg-im-Breisgau to Berlin, and Dresden to Cologne.  




Admittedly, many Germans speak impeccable English but I still had cause to use my German in navigating everyday life in Germany (in particular, buying cakes!).

My grant for this work in Germany (from the British Academy) included a small budget for translation in the field, but as has been written elsewhere, doing research through someone else’s ‘voice’ comes with its own issues.  In particular, social science research which involves in-depth and detailed conversations in other languages can potentially cause problems, from causing offence to asking the wrong questions or not getting the ‘right’ data.  Working with interpreters who are specialists in languages but who are not necessarily familiar with your area of work and related technical or specific terminology (in my case relating to green building in Germany and local food in Italy, see below) can be quite challenging, and trying to make sure you find out what you need to but being reliant on someone else’s interpretation of what you actually mean can be interesting!  In Italy in particular, the translator would have quite long bursts of conversation with the interviewees and then only feedback a sentence or two to me, like a Monty Python sketch – interviews can be such dynamic interactions that if you’re not following it all you risk missing vital opportunities to ask questions. 

Community apple festival, Abruzzo

As well as visiting Germany for research earlier this year, my PhD research involved fieldwork in a remote part of Italy, the Abruzzo region – stunningly beautiful but with very few English speaking people around.  I was lucky to have funding to take lessons in Italian and I love learning the language (I try to continue this post-PhD), but there is a difference between taking classes in the UK and trying to have detailed and specific conversations with specialists in their field.  Italy was quite different to Germany as only one interviewee wanted to speak in English – transcribing interviews in Italian and then translating to English was tough, but did really advance my language skills and vocabulary of Italian words.  In hindsight the extra few months I was allocated for this aspect of my PhD research wasn’t really enough since I started from scratch learning Italian! 

Certificate for local food producers
in the Majella National Park, Abruzzo

 This part of my PhD research was the bit which most worried me, and right from starting the PhD I was concerned about how I would set this up, whether people would respond to requests for interviews and whether I would be able to speak to them and understand them (quite apart from a month away from home without internet access and with patchy mobile phone coverage for a UK mobile).  It took quite a bit of setting up and a very early flight from Manchester airport, but the people I interviewed were incredible, and welcomed me openly – they were very interested in my research and were happy to tell me their experiences of local food systems in their part of Italy.  My PhD research was looking at local food systems and the contribution they can potentially make to rural development – quite different issues came up in Italy compared to my UK study area of East Yorkshire.  The photos below illustrate some of the differences in landscape and therefore the potential for different types of farming and food production. 

Bales in Yorkshire Wolds, East Yorkshire

View from agriturismo, Abruzzo

Oilseed rape field, East Yorkshire

Campo Imperatore, Abruzzo

    
How and why did I choose to visit these particular places?  With my PhD research in Italy it had already been decided that the Abruzzo region would be the case study region, based on a long standing relationship between the University of Hull and a group of local food producers running a cooperative called Parco Produce (Produce from the (National) Park).  The area also has a LEADER rural development programme (funded by the EU) like my case study region of East Yorkshire in the UK.  For Germany, this idea came out of research interviews with green building businesses in the UK who repeatedly stated how advanced Germany is in many areas of green building (interestingly, many Germans stated how advanced the UK is in terms of straw bale building!).  Germany is a pretty big country, so I started to research on the internet which areas would be good to visit - Freiburg was fairly obvious as it promotes itself as a leader in green building, but I also found interesting clusters around Cologne and the Rhineland more generally.  I also visited some of the national organisations based in Berlin and Stuttgart.  There was plenty more I could've done in Germany but I only had funding for three weeks in Germany which limited my possibilities...another time perhaps!

I was surprised when I went to Italy 4 years ago how different it was to where I was used to living – I stayed around the Sulmona area (think The American with George Clooney), which is mountainous with dispersed rural populations.  I was definitely recognisable as ‘not local’ but everyone was really friendly, and wanted to know where I was from and what I was doing.  Germany was a different experience as I mostly stayed in towns and cities which were, on the whole, more impersonal and apart from meeting up with interviewees and colleagues from German Universities I didn’t really get to meet ‘local’ German people.  I travelled to and from Germany without flying (bus, boat, train, tram etc.) and this was where I met more people.  ‘Doing’ research outside the UK is a great opportunity to complement knowledges and experiences of the places we’re used to with those we’re not used to – it’s definitely not a jolly but can be really good fun!  I’ve previously written a blog post about the German research (http://gees-talk.blogspot.com/2013/08/building-green-homes-what-does-this-mean.html) and there’s one in the pipeline on my PhD research too...

The Road to Graduation

Phinally Done

By Dr Karen Scott (@DrKarenScott)

On the 19th December 2012 I submitted my PhD thesis. 6 months and 20 days later and I have just graduated! The process in between these two dates was most surreal, with a never ending feeling about it. Until yesterday!

My research focused on investigating sustainable solutions for roadside gully pot management, which came as a result of the 2007 Hull floods. The fortnight leading up to my thesis submission was one of the most stressful and tiring times of my life, but the massive feeling of accomplishment I had when I handed those two large copies in was overwhelming. After the celebratory buzz (and the hangover) settled down, it quickly sank in that the PhD process was still not over, and wouldn’t be for a while. Not until after the Viva Voca. And then the corrections. 

This was the strangest feeling, the thing which I had been so focused on and had taken over my life for the past three and a half years was written up, bound and handed in, all my lab work was completed and my bench space cleaned, but the process was not finished. It was now in the hands of the gods (or the Professors that were marking it). I felt a little lost to be honest, like all PhD researchers I had got into the system of thinking of nothing else but the PhD, thankfully I had the gluttony of Christmas and New Year to take my mind off this.

When I returned to uni I bumbled along trying to get back into a ‘normal’ routine. My time was filled doing bits of work on a new paper and applying for jobs. The false feeling of it being over snuck in, then I received an email with the Viva date.... and the stress twitch came back. 

I had one month until the exam. I spent the first two weeks trying to work out how to prepare for this thing which had terrified me since the day I had signed up to do the PhD. Eventually after asking just about everyone in (and out of!) the department, I started to revise my thesis, the area around it and anything else I could grasp at.The day came incredibly fast! 

My hands were clammy and my mouth was dry, and this was just on the approach to the department. I was absolutely terrified! My examiners were lovely, they tried to relax me at the beginning with compliments, easy introductory questions and questions about my finds while sampling (bowling balls, money and plastic Gary Lineker legless toys seemed to raise a smile). Then the real questions came, quick and fast. Thankfully I was able to answer most with confidence but there were some hairy times where I felt I was just digging myself deeper into holes. After about two and a half hours they called an end to it, and I was sent out while they made their decision. I went to wait in my supervisor’s office (who looked like a new parent waiting for his first child to make an appearance) and although I was only out for 10 minutes it felt like it lasted longer than the Viva itself! I was called back in to smiling faces, as I was told I had passed with minor corrections. I was over the moon! The celebrations started straight away but I found myself being so exhausted from the whole thing I had to head home for an early night and resume the celebrations on the next day!

After a week of soaking it all in that I had actually passed, it dawned on me it still wasn't over, there were the corrections to do. Thankfully I only had minor corrections, which didn't take too long, but it did take a while to get my head back into it and get them done for the summer graduation deadline. As you can guess from this blog, I made it. It’s officially over. I’m finally done. There is no more work to do, apart from squeezing one or two more papers from the thesis and then put it on the shelf to gather dust. And that feels amazing. Knowing all the ups and downs, late nights, early mornings, retests, retrials and re-jigging of work was worth it, and collecting that piece of paper amongst the rest of the graduates who have all been through this makes it that much sweeter.