Early Career Scientists

GeoTalk: Meet Soil Microbiologist and Early Career Scientist Biogeosceinces Representative, Elsa Abs!

Simon Clark February 6, 2026

Hello Elsa & welcome to GeoTalk! Before we dig deeper, could you introduce yourself to our readers? Hi! I’m Elsa (they/them). I’m a microbiologist/biogeochemist, and I just started a permanent position at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) one month ago. I work with one PhD student, Elisa Richard, and two postdocs, Mathilde Bourreau and Thomas Cortier, on my ERC Starting ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: meet Silke Asche, researcher of the origin of life on other planets!

Simon Clark January 16, 2026

Hello Silke and welcome to GeoTalk! Before we dig into your topic of expertise, could you introduce yourself to our readers? Hello, Simon. My name is Silke Asche, and I am a chemist in astrobiology and part of the Agnostic Biosignature Collective led by Dr Heather Graham at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight enter. My Ph.D. focused on Origins of Life (OoL) research and the automation of such experiments. ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: meet Thanushika Gunatilake, researcher of earthquake impacts on geothermal energy

Simon Clark October 28, 2025

Hello Thanushika – welcome to GeoTalk! Before we delve deeper, could you introduce yourself to our readers? Thank you for having me! I’m Thanushika Gunatilake, an Assistant Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. My research connects natural and human-induced processes in the Earth’s crust; from earthquake nucleation in the central Apennines, subduction dynamics, and volcanic activity, to geoth ...[Read More]

The existential modelling crisis – and how to overcome it

Lucia Layritz September 5, 2025

Recently, we had a big name in fire ecology visiting our institute. He had come, among other things, to look for records of a certain fire-adapted shrub in my university’s herbarium. While myself and a colleague helped him go through the stacks of pressed and archived specimens, I asked him why there were so little contributions to the herbarium in recent years. His response was: “People sto ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: meet Stefanie Kaboth Bahr, your new Early Career Scientist Union Representative!

Simon Clark May 29, 2025

Hello Stef. Thank you for agreeing to this interview! Before we delve deeper, could you tell our readers about yourself and your background in palaeoclimatology? Thank you for having me! I’m a Junior Professor of Palaeoclimatology at Freie Universität Berlin, a position I’ve been fortunate to hold since 2023. My academic journey began with a PhD in Paleoclimatology from Utrecht University in the N ...[Read More]

Congratulations to the winners of the EGU25 Photo Competition!

Hazel Gibson May 2, 2025

For this year’s Photo Contest, EGU received a number of amazing images capturing a broad spectrum of the geosciences. Since the selection committee whittled the field down to 10 finalists, you have been voting for your favourites throughout EGU25’s week-long conference, both on-site in Vienna at the EGU booth, and online. After an enthusiastic response from voters, we are now ready -and very ...[Read More]

How to make your geoscience communication publishable: Find out at EGU25

Solmaz Mohadjer April 25, 2025

A long time ago, when I walked into the Ministry of Education building in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) to inquire about offering an earthquake education workshop in a public school, I had no research agenda, let alone thinking about publishing it one day. All I wanted was to do something useful: sharing earthquake science with school children. Recognizing the value of geoscience communication, my graduat ...[Read More]

Get our top Outstanding Student and PhD-candidate Presentation (OSPP) tips for EGU25, from previous winners and judges!

Hazel Gibson April 22, 2025

Every year at the General Assembly hundreds of students present their research with a lot of time and effort going into preparing these presentations. With the aim to further improve the overall quality of poster presentations and more importantly, to encourage Early Career Scientists to present their work in the form of a poster, the OSP Awards (as they were formerly known), were born. Since the ...[Read More]

EGU25 Photo Competition finalists – who will you vote for?

Hazel Gibson April 21, 2025

This year’s Photo Competition judging panel did a fantastic job of narrowing down the outstanding photo submissions to the EGU’s Photo Competition to just 10 finalists! The finalist photos are listed below and on the Imaggeo website where you can vote for them from Sunday 27 April until Thursday, 1 May 2025 – voting closes at 18:00 CEST. The three photos with the most votes will be an ...[Read More]

What’s on for Early Career Scientists at EGU25

Simon Clark April 16, 2025

Early Career Scientists (ECS) – defined as a student, a PhD candidate, or a practising scientist who received their highest certificate (e.g. BSc, MSc or PhD) within the past seven years – compose about half of EGU’s members. Many of the sessions and events throughout the Assembly are built with our ECS attendees in mind, from introducing you to the Assembly and the Union as a whole or the numerou ...[Read More]