Celia Willoughby, UCL Geography student and GfGD Ambassador, writes about a recent event… Wednesday 19th November, saw the first UCL GfGD lecture of the year, taken by guest speaker Prof. Richard Taylor. Professor of hydrogeology in UCL’s Geography Department, his most recent focus of research is the study of groundwater, and the effects of climate change on groundwater supplies. The a ...[Read More]
We all know about the flaws of impact factors, including how they lead to citing recent research, self-citing etc. But I thought it would be handy to compile a list of journals where well-cited groundwater articles are most often published. Like it or not, I sometimes look up this information and I assume other people do to. The impact factor is certainly not the only factor I use to decide where ...[Read More]
(Credit: Geology for Global Development, 2014) This truck load of sugar cane was one of many observed on this stretch of road from Antigua leading to a volcanic observatory around the volcano Fuego. Agriculture – notably sugar and coffee – in Guatemala is highly significant in many respects, bringing benefits such as exports and jobs. There are however other more hidden impacts, relati ...[Read More]
It is now a year since the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) announced the results of its first competition for ‘Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTP)’, and just a few weeks since each of the 15 funded DTPs welcomed their first cohorts of doctoral students. In this time, the training landscape for PhD (or DPhil) students across the environmental sciences has changed radically. ...[Read More]
A tweet from Jenni Barclay about a Pirate Scientist gave me an excuse to visit the newly opened reading rooms in the Bodleian’s Weston Library.. William Dampier was a seventeenth century pirate, and later maritime adventurer, whose several books of ‘Voyages and Discoveries’ make for fascinating reading. In 1699, he set sail in HMS Roebuck to try and find Terra Australis, a mythic ...[Read More]
Below we’ve listed details of a session that will be of interest to many of you at the EGU General Assembly, in Vienna, next spring. Many postgraduates and academic staff from across the UK and beyond attend this event, sharing details of the latest research they have been doing. The convenors of this session, including GfGD Director Joel Gill and GfGD Leeds Ambassador Ekbal Hussain, are kee ...[Read More]
Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. A picture we’ve shared on this blog before – but well worth including in our Images from Guatemala series. Taken from Panajachel, and looking across to the volcanoes of Atitlan (right) and Toliman (left). The small mound in front of Toliman is known as Cerro de Oro. The lake fills a significant caldera (volcanic crater), formed from an eruption known as the Lo ...[Read More]
Fiesta at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Guatemala is a country with many volcanic hazards, as shown in some of the previous images in this series, but also a country rich in culture and traditions. The image above was taken at the annual fiesta in San Pablo, a small town on the edge of Lake Atitlan. During the fiesta a religious procession goes through the streets, with firecrackers being lit in front ...[Read More]
Information about an external event that may be of interest to some of our readers: “You are warmly invited to attend the launch of the Missing Maps Project, a collaboration between the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) , the British Red Cross, the American Red Cross, and Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) . This exciting project will draw on a massive force of volu ...[Read More]
Many professors are confused about why a certain graduate student is happy or unhappy, under performing or performing well. I am far from a perfect supervisor, but I try to avoid this confusion by getting to know my graduate students on a relatively deep but professional level as quickly as possible, by doing the following in our first meeting: sharing results of a personality test; discussing our ...[Read More]
