HS
Hydrological Sciences

Floreana Miesen

Floreana Miesen was a student in Physical Geography at the Universities of Bonn and Bergen until 2019. Since 2020 she is a fieldwork technician at the Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She’s also a trained nature guide. Twitter handle: @thestatusflo.

A students’ wish list for field courses that leave no one behind

and November 9, 2022
A students’ wish list for field courses that leave no one behind
Léa (left) and Floreana (right) preparing equipment for helicopter transport in the Swiss Alps. Photo: Arthur Mebius

Following an inspiring workshop, as well as our own experiences and informal discussions with students and undergraduate PhD students at the University of Lausanne (see our previous blog post), we collected ideas for a wish list for safe and accessible field classes. It is not exhaustive, and we hope that it will inspire field leaders and students alike. The wish list is summarized here below. It ...[Read More]

Inclusive fieldwork: issues to care about

and November 2, 2022
Inclusive fieldwork: issues to care about
Field courses can have different styles and range from outdoor lecturing to practical exercises. Photo: Yuniarti Yuska

Imagine it is your first time going on a field trip. After spending hours in the lecture theatre, you are excited to get outside and see those environmental processes that so far you have only seen in graphs and figures. You get off the bus, and the first thing your professor says  is: “people less comfortable with climbing on the rocks can just take the notes”, while looking at you and your femal ...[Read More]

Running a live stream of proglacial processes

and November 4, 2020
Running a live stream of proglacial processes
Sampling in the glacier-fed stream near the field camp. Photo: Floreana Miesen

In Switzerland, nothing is really remote, but some places are more so than others. Dense infrastructure networks typically provide convenient access to research sites in the Alps where it is difficult to feel far away from home. However, this is not always the case… For us, our home for the summer is a bit different. We work at 2400 m above sea level in Southern Switzerland, in a narrow vall ...[Read More]