10 Minute Interview

We are back! After a few weeks without posting, we thought it was about time we blogged! I have a HUGE backlog of 10 minute interviews that I have to transcribe from EGU 2014. The General Assembly was a great place to meet lots of young scientists doing all sorts of diverse and extremely interesting research. I’ve already posted a couple of interviews I carried out at EGU 2014 (you can read the one with Cindy Mora Stock here and the one with Young Scientist Representative Sam Illingworth here), but there are many more to come.

Today is the first of those! I had the huge pleasure of meeting the lovely Hazel Gibson at EGU. We’d ‘met’ on twitter and I was a huge fan of the content she shares on the social media platform. A girl after my own heart, she is big into science communication and outreach :)! Talking to her was fascinating, her research is focused on the up and coming discipline of geocognition which is how people perceive and understand Earth Sciences. Think psychology meets Earth Science. Importantly, it explores how your background (are you a knowledgeable audience, e.g. a geology researcher, or a non-expert. e.g. a member of the public) affects how you perceive the importance and relevance of Earth Sciences. I wasn’t able to attend Hazel’s talk at the conference, which was hugely disappointing, so I can’t give you more details. However, if you are keen to learn more, Hazel’s excellent blog is a good place to start!

Vital Statistics

• You are: Hazel Gibbson
• You work at: Plymouth University
• Your role is: PhD – 2^nd Year.

Q1) What are you currently working on?

I study what people understand about geology, from a psychology perspective: known as geocognition. It combines geology and psychology by looking at how different audiences understand Earth Sciences. A key point is, how do professionals, academics and the public (including policy makers and teachers – it s a broad audience and can be broadly divided between an expert/non-expert audience) communicate and perceive Earth Sciences.

Q2) What is a typical day like for you?

My time is mostly spent in the office; I spend a lot of time interviewing participants and transcribing interviews. I have to construct the interview results into a visual interpretation of what is in interviewees head. In a sense, I have to try and create a model of what they are thiking. I also spend a lot of time working on outreach at the university. I have recently been involved with the Lyme Regis fossil festival. To take part in that I’m having to travel straight from EGU to festival.

Q3) Can you provide a brief insight into the main findings of your recent paper/research?

I am presenting an oral presentation at the EGU 2014 Assembly on Public Perceptions of geology. At the moment geosciences literacy models are used to build communication, if any models exist at all. But initial findings suggest that they don’t go far enough when comparing expert and non-expert perception of Earth Sciences because they are too logical and simplistic. When compared to a public model you get a lot of differences, not necessarily because the public’s model is wrong but because they haven’t had the training, so their mental models are different and structured differently, so it is misleading to think they are not logical.

Q4) What has been the highlight of your career so far? And as an early stage researcher where do you see yourself in a few years time?

I attended the unconventional gas conference and won a prize for her poster! This was a great achievement because the conference was mainly Industry lead. Presenting a poster on public perceptions of the subsurface to such a technically audience and wining a prize for it was very rewarding.

I would like to continue researching this field because it is a growing field. There is currently, lots of discussion from geoscientist about the importance of public understanding of Earth Sciences but not very much formal research. This means there are lots of avenues you can go down in this field, such as teaching. In the future I see myself teaching at Universities.

Q6) To what locations has your research taken you and why?

My research based in South west of the U.K. so I spend a lot of time in Devon & Cornwall particularly. These areas were chosen for my research due to there being a strong historical geology link, as the area used to be heavily mined and there are lots mining traditions which still remain. An interesting question I am trying to address is how does the cultural identity affects people’s perceptions of Earth Science?.

Q7) What is your highlight of attending the EGU 2014 Assembly?

The highlight of the Assembly is being able to meet other young researchers. You get very isolated as a PhD student. As an interdisciplinary student I often feel like strange, like I don’t belong to either research community my work sits within and that can lead me to think my problems are very much my own. The Assembly gives me the opportunity to meet and talk to people who are also doing interdisciplinary PhD. It’s nice to know there are people who are in the same boat as me.

Q8) If you could invent an element, what would it be called and what would it do?

Unobtanium – mineral that is in all the films. Solves the energy crisis and create clean fuel and clean itself up! It would probably glow as well.

Hazel undertook her undergraduate degree in physical geography with geology at Plymouth University. She then moved to Masters in hazard assessment, at Portsmouth University. Her first job was as an engineering geologist in Brisbane. The position gave her the opportunity to save lots of money, which allowed her to move onto a working as a volunteer in Mt St Helen’s as a ranger for a season. This role gave Hazel her first taste of public engagement and she enjoyed it so much she realised this was the career for her. After her time at Mt St. Helen’s she went onto the Natural History Museum in London and worked as a science educator and then moved onto a role as an Earth Science Identification Officer – identified what people sent in! She us now back at Plymouth University completing her PhD.

 If you’d like to get in touch with Hazel you can reach her on email or twitter.

It turns out, I’m not so great at keep the promises I make our blog readers… I AM working on the next post for the Making the most of your PhD series.

In the mean time, this 10 minute interview actually fits the theme of the Making the most of your PhD series quite well. This week, I bring you Hayley Dunning, of the Natural History Museum, London.  Whilst Hayley’s current role is as a science web editor, the route to  finding her path and career wasn’t straight forward. It is sometimes difficult to see how a love of science can be continued into a fulfilling career that does not involve academia and research. Hayley embarked on a PhD and decided  it wasn’t  right for her. As a science web editor she has been able to combine the two things she loves most, science and writing. I talk about PhDs a lot in Geology Jenga, but actually, the whole point of the 10 minute interviews is to highlight the unsung heroes  of science (in the traditional academic sense) and Hayley is most certainly one of them!

Vital Statistics

• You are: Hayley Dunning
• You work at: The Natural History Museum, London.
• Your role is: Science web editor

Q1) What are you currently working on?

Right now I’m building pages about the Museum’s cetacean strandings program. They have been recording details of stranded whales, dolphins and porpoises around the UK for 100 years, and now they want to the public to be more involved in reporting and identifying strandings.

I also write news articles about whatever new research is published by the Museum’s scientists; today it’s about meteorites (as it often is!).

Q2) What is a typical day like for you?

If there’s a journal article coming out, I’ll read the paper and call the scientist to find out more about it. Often I’m looking for a nice colourful anecdote – something the national media wouldn’t get. It’s fun to learn about the scientist’s personal adventures.

If there’s no news that day I’ll make web pages, usually about the research that goes on behind the scenes, the massive collections the Museum houses or something that the public are thinking about. For example, the other week I wrote up pages about the false widow spider in the UK, trying to allay some of the undue panic!

Q3) Does your job allow you to have any academic outputs?

I don’t write academic papers, but since I decided to go this route I’ve written a lot of articles for magazines and other publications. I used to be on an academic path, working towards a career as a volcanologist, but I found it too narrow in the end. Since, I’ve written articles about intelligent machines, body clocks, meteorites from Mars, drugged mummies and everything in between.

Hayley with Sir David Attenborough, or at least the bit she was able to keep!

Q4) What has been the highlight of your career so far? And as an early stage researcher where do you see yourself in a few years time?

At the Museum, the false widow spider report was a highlight. I just heard today it helped make October one of the most successful months ever on the website.

A long article I wrote about fracking in Canada was a personal achievement. I like writing about all sorts of different things every day, but it’s also nice to get a deep expertise in something. I guess I’m still at scientist at heart!

In a few years I’d like do more features and long-form science writing, bringing an art back to the joy of discovery. Non-fiction books would be great, but as long as I’m still learning I’ll be happy.

Q5) To what locations has your research taken you and why?

Volcanology took me to Canada, Alaska, Mexico and Japan, for which I am very thankful! At the Museum, the fun stuff tends to come to me instead. Working for such an old and renowned public-facing science organisation has its perks – last week Sir David Attenborough and Bill Bailey unveiled a statue of Alfred Russel Wallace at the Museum. I grabbed a random postcard from my office and managed to get an autograph from Sir Dave!

Q6) Do you have one piece of advice for anyone wanting to have a career similar to yours?

Go for it. Here’s the silly fact about me: I have three Masters degrees. Two are in Earth sciences; the second started out as a PhD (the third is in journalism). I’d always liked writing, and it was honestly a lightbulb moment when I realised I could marry science and writing as a career. I thought long and hard about giving up my PhD – I’d never get to call myself Dr Dunning! But I realised in the end it wasn’t giving up, it was not wasting time and effort on something I ultimately didn’t want, and wasn’t going to use. I’m not suggesting it was a sudden decision that anyone should take lightly, but if there’s something you really want to do, don’t let a seemingly pre-determined career get in your way.

Q7) If you could invent an element, what would it be called and what would it do?

I’d love to create an element with the power to make me less sleepy or to make things float, but practically it would be nice to have a radioactive element that would act as a powerful and relatively clean fuel source. I think I’d call it Infinitum (although it’s chemical symbol would be Hd  – I want some glory!)

Hayley did an MSci in Environmental Geoscience at Bristol where she spent a year abroad in Iceland. She then did an MSc in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, and finally a Masters in Journalism at the University of British Columbia. Now she’s not a student any more, she’s trying to figure out what to do with all this spare time that isn’t filled with assignments and deadlines!