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Meet the scientists!

My CV

School:

Minster School, Southwell, Notts

University:

University of Plymouth

Work History:

Employer:

University of Leeds

Current Job:

PhD researcher

Photo:

Lyndsey Fox

some weird questions on chat today....

Favourite Thing: Tea breaks, and travelling the world to see amazing rocks!

Me and my work

I’m a geologist! I research climate change during the Miocene (17 million years ago) using microfossils collected from the sea floor in the Pacific Ocean. Understanding past climate change helps us predict the future!

I’m a geologist / micropalaeontologist, this means I look at fossils which are tiny!

I spend most of my time looking at a group of microfossils called “foraminifera”, these are single celled organisms which build a calcium carbonate shell in isotopic equilibrium with sea water. This means the chemistry of the animal’s shell is the same as the water it lives in. So by taking the fossilised foraminifera and looking at the proportions of oxygen and carbon in the shell we can find out what the oceans were like in the past. 

 

My Typical Day

Coffee, answer emails, microscope work, coffee, teaching university students about geology and fossils, more coffee, and more microscope work!

I normally work a 10 hour day, 6 days a week. It’s hard work doing a PhD! But it’s worth the long hours when you start to get results.

My day usually starts at 8am with a strong cup of coffee, and a long list of emails to answer. Most of my time is spent behind a microscope, picking my tiny fossils out of sediment samples ready to be vaporised in the mass spectrometer, but I have some cool speakers in the lab so I can plug my ipod and blast the tunes out whilst I’m slaving away. I also spend a lot of time helping run practical sessions for the undergraduates at the university. I teach palaeontology, and practical geology, and mineralogy.

Most days I finish around 7pm (unless I have a presentation to prepare or paper to write, in which case, it’s not uncommon for me to work all night!) and then hang out at the pub with the other PhD students for a couple of hours before going home and falling into bed. Ready to do it all again the next day!

It’s not all late nights and labwork though because as a geologist I get to travel the world and see some amazing rocks!
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What I'd do with the money

Take dinosaurs and fossils in to primary schools.

My Interview

How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

Geeky, short, laid-back (is “laid-back” 2 words?)

Who is your favourite singer or band?

I love indie and prog-rock (but I’m a closet Kate Bush fan)

What is the most fun thing you've done?

Climbed a volcano whilst it was erupting.

If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

To be taller, to be paid more money, to own a vw van.

What did you want to be after you left school?

A geologist.

Were you ever in trouble in at school?

nope, i was a goody two shoes. i didn’t try to rebel until I got to Uni and even then I wasn’t good at it!

What's the best thing you've done as a scientist?

discovered a new species!

Tell us a joke.

I really cannot think of a clean one?!

Vote for me!