How do you get to be a palaeoecologist?

Researcher profile: Dr Michelle Farrell (@DrM_Farrell)


As discussed by several GEESologists in our series of researcher profile blogs, it took me a long time to realise that what I do for a living now could actually be a real job! Even while I was an undergraduate student, it never occurred to me that several of the staff members in my department (postdocs, postgraduate students etc) were paid mainly to carry out research, and that research also formed a significant part of my lecturers' jobs. A career in academia was something that I knew very little about until I accidentally fell into one, and now I find it hard to contemplate doing anything else - I am incredibly lucky to have a job that I find so interesting.

I'd always been interested in natural history from an early age, mainly stimulated by childhood holidays in the UK and France. I grew up around two hours drive from the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, and hiking with family and friends in these regions convinced me that I wanted to pursue a career that involved working outdoors. During a career-planning session at school we had to complete a computer-based questionnaire, which used our answers to come up with a list of suitable jobs. From this, one job that struck me as interesting was a national park ranger (some of the other options were a little less desirable, 'waste management operative' being one that has stuck with me over the years). I loved the idea of being able to work in one of the national parks that I enjoyed spending so much of my leisure time in, and wanted to help conserve it for future generations. With this in mind I went off to the University of Wales, Aberystwyth to study for a BSc in Environmental Science.

Growing up in the 1990s, when issues such as acid rain, the ozone hole and global warming were front-page news, I was looking forward to learning more about the effects that people were having on the environment during my degree studies. However during some of my introductory lectures at Aberystwyth, I discovered that people had actually been affecting the environment for thousands of years already, and that it was actually possible to study these past impacts. I became particularly interested in palaeoecology, though I never imagined that I would actually be able to pursue a career in this field. Circumstances prevented me from undertaking a palaeoecological dissertation in my final year, and I made do with an ecological one instead, still planning to follow a career in ecology and/or conservation.

When I began to search for jobs towards the end of my degree, I discovered that vast amounts of practical experience were required even for an entry-level ecology or conservation job. I had done some voluntary conservation work with the Aberystwyth Conservation Volunteers, and my degree had equipped me with some practical ecological skills, but it wasn't enough. Several months' unpaid voluntary work was needed to allow me to gain the necessary skills. Student maintenance grants had been abolished the year before I began my degree, and with a fairly hefty student loan to pay off I needed to find paid work. I took a job in sales, and while I learned some valuable people skills and gained a lot of administrative experience (both of which are very useful in my current role!), I soon knew that it wasn't what I wanted to do forever.

When a friend forwarded me a job advertisement for a research assistant at the Wetland Archaeology and Environments Research Centre (WAERC) at the University of Hull, I realised that the thing I'd found really interesting at university could actually be a job! I didn't have any practical experience, but as the advert said that training would be provided for the right candidate, I figured it was worth a try. Unsurprisingly, I wasn't shortlisted for interview, but Jane Bunting wrote to me and suggested that I apply for one of the funded PhD studentships that the Department of Geography were currently offering. Until then I had no idea that you could be paid to do a PhD, so I jumped at the chance. I had no access to an academic library, so Jane sent me a few key papers in the post, I put together a project proposal, and I was invited for interview and offered a studentship.

I moved to Hull to start my PhD in September 2005 and have been here ever since! My PhD used pollen analysis and a suite of allied techniques to explore concepts of marginality and the response of human populations to changing environmental conditions in prehistoric Orkney. I became very interested in integrating palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data, and was keen to work more closely with archaeologists on future projects. Archaeology was also something that I'd always been interested in, but despite being a big fan of Time Team, I hadn't even realised it was something you could study at university, let alone that it could be a job! 

Pretending to hold up one of the standing stones at Carnac on a family holiday to Brittany: apparently my interests in archaeology also began at an early age, though I didn't realise this until much later...

Hugging the Stone of Setter on Eday, Orkney during fieldwork in 2006: nothing much changes...

After defending my thesis, I continued to work with Jane as a post-doctoral research associate on the Crackles Bequest Project, which I'm sure will feature in future blog posts from one or both of us. During 2012 and 2013 I worked part-time on this project, as I was also working as a palaeoecologist for English Heritage as part of their Environmental Studies Team based at Fort Cumberland in Portsmouth. This gave me plenty of opportunities to work with archaeologists, and it was through contacts that I made here that I ended up working on my current project - producing pollen-based reconstructions of past land cover in some iconic Neolithic landscapes as part of the Times of Their Lives project run by Cardiff University and English Heritage. This will be the final project that I work on as a GEESologist at Hull - on May 1st I start work as a research fellow at Queen's University, Belfast, and will be working with archaeologists and other palaeoecologists on the FRAGSUS project, which is examining human-environment relationships in the island environment of Malta. This will be a big change after 8.5 years in Hull, but it's a challenge that I'm looking forward to and it's hopefully one more step along the path to the coveted permanent academic job!

I feel incredibly fortunate to have figured out how to be a palaeoecologist - it's challenging, much more interesting than most other jobs I can think of, and good fun too - I've been on some fantastic fieldwork at locations all over Europe and have met many great friends and colleagues along the way. My advice to anyone who is fascinated by a particular topic at university but can't imagine how it could ever lead to a career - ask your lecturer about it, you never know!

How do you become a volcanologist?

Researcher profile: Dr Rebecca Williams (@volcanologist)

How do you get to be a volcanologist? That’s a question I get asked a LOT. And a question that I’m happy to talk to anybody about, because I think it’s the best job in the world. It’s a question that I never had anybody to ask it to, when I was thinking about what career I might want to have. Through my GCSEs I got more and more interested in physical geography and my rock collection at home was growing (on the journey back from a Girl Guides camping trip, the coach driver asked me “what have you got in here, rocks or something?!” as he loaded my bags. He was stunned when I replied “yes, actually”). For a GCSE project we did an information pamphlet for the people of Naples about the volcano Vesuvius. Could you do this as a job?!

Pantelleria caldera lake - studying volcanoes means travel to some beautiful places.

But when I met with the ‘careers guidance’ teacher at school, they didn’t know what you could do to study volcanoes and geology. “Perhaps you could be a geophysicist?!” Well that was a word I’d heard of, being an avid Time Team watcher, so I thought that it sounded like a good idea. I chose my A levels based on that careers advice and started collecting university prospectuses based on who offered geophysics, but found myself narrowing down my UCAS choices by who emphasised volcanology on their courses.

Working at HVO as a gas geochemist.

The promise that ‘some of our undergraduates have volunteered at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory (HVO)’ made me head off to Royal Holloway to do a BSc in Geology. By that point I’d had a Nuffield Science Bursary and been awarded a Gold Crest Award for a summer’s work experience at TGS-NOPEC, where I discovered that geophysics probably wasn’t for me. But I knew that studying Geology would be ace, and I wasn’t wrong. My degree instilled a love of fieldwork, a sense of travel and adventure and a never ending curiosity about rocks: where did they come from? how they were formed? I entered my 3^rd year not really knowing what career I’d end up having, but knew I wanted it to be geology related. I applied constantly to the HVO until they finally offered me a placement. So, a week after graduation I flew to Hawaii where I worked as a gas geochemist for 6 months. This was not only an amazing experience (walking on lava flows, contributing to important science, hiking across volcanic terrain, snorkelling at the weekends) but also the moment when I realised that I could be a volcanologist as a career.

My path to volcanology wasn't always linear. For a while I worked as a PADI Divemaster.

On return from HVO I spent a year and a half working at the Hydroactive Dive Centre as a PADI Divemaster. I spent this time saving up and applying for Grad School so I could get a Master’s degree in Volcanology. I was awarded a teaching assistantship to study at the University of Buffalo in the USA. Here, my interest in hazardous volcanic flows developed, starting with my Master’s research on lahars.  Developing and driving my own research was something I’d really enjoyed so I then searched high and low for a great PhD project so I could continue doing volcanic research. I returned to the UK to do my PhD at the University of Leicester on pyroclastic density currents.

Logging volcanic deposits in the field

After my PhD I sailed as an igneous petrologist on an IODP expedition, and held a series of short-term teaching contracts at Leicester. This post-doc time of anyone’s life can be tough – when you’re never sure if that holy grail of an academic job can be found. I stuck it out, worked hard, juggled a part-time job as a teaching fellow and a part-time research job and gained some invaluable experience. Then, a year ago I made the move to Hull as a lecturer in geology, undertaking research in volcanology and now hold a permanent position. I made it. I’m a volcanologist. Now, I'm training up a new generation of budding geographers, geologists and hopefully, a volcanologist or two.

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…