Storytelling

GeoTalk: Meet glacial hauntologist, Elizabeth Case (you read that right, a glacial hauntologist!)

Simon Clark October 10, 2025

Elizabeth Case

Welcome to GeoTalk, Elizabeth! Could you introduce yourself and your background? I’m a genderfluid glaciologist living between previously glaciated, currently glaciated, and flood-prone landscapes. I am a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. I did my bachelor’s in physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and my Ph.D. in glacial geophysics at Co ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: meet Sinelethu Hashibi, a geologist translating geoscience for isiXhosa-speaking communities!

Simon Clark February 23, 2024

Hello Sinelethu! Thank you for joining this edition of GeoTalk. Could you introduce yourself and your background? Thank you for inviting me! I am Sinelethu Hashibi, from the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Currently, I am working on my PhD in mantle geochemistry at the University of Cape Town. I am particularly interested in the chemical and thermal structure of the lithospheric mantle, and how that ...[Read More]

Swamps may be considered spooky, but is there more than meets the eye?

Simon Clark October 30, 2023

Credit: Original image by Vitalie Petra

Swamps are spooky. This is the prevailing notion from the depiction of wetlands – the saturated lands of swamps, bogs, and fens – in the media. From the folktales of Will-o’-the-Wisps guiding travellers astray to the many, many swamp monsters of Scooby Doo, the sign is clear: a scrawled “stay away from here” thrust deep in the mud, writ by centuries of storytellers. As a reputation it’ ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: meet Francesco Avanzi, researcher in meltwater security!

Simon Clark December 15, 2022

Francesco Avanzi

Hi Francesco. Thanks for agreeing to this interview! To break the ice, could you tell our readers a bit about yourself and your research? Hey Simon! I’m an Italian hydrologist and earned a PhD at Politecnico di Milano with a dissertation on how snowmelt contributes to seasonal runoff. I then did a postdoc at UC Berkeley, California, where I collaborated with a major US hydropower company to improv ...[Read More]