Profile

I’m currently studying for a volcanology PhD – this means I study and learn new things about volcanoes, often things that no one else has ever thought about before! This is one of the best bits about being a scientist.

Everyone knows how amazing and exciting volcanoes can be (you just have to do a quick google search to find awesome eruption photos), but they are also deadly! This is why it’s important that people like myself study them – at the end of the day we want to make volcanoes safer places for the people living around them.

My studies are based on working out how and why volcanoes move or ‘breathe’ before they erupt. When we can better understand this we can use it to help predict when eruptions might happen. This means we will be able to evacuate people and protect property, saving lives in the process.

I also write for a blog and tweet if you want to know more about the work my friends and I do (though I will say sorry now as there are probably some quite complicated words in there!). Or you can read about how I will spend the money if I win and maybe we’ll be able to come and tell you all about volcanoes :D.

Work as a volcanologist is awesome! I like how each day can be very different, but that also makes answering this question very hard…

Studying volcanoes usually requires going into the ‘field’ and collecting data. The ‘field’ is just the word we use for work that is based outside and you can see some example photos below. In the ‘field’ a ‘typical’ day rarely goes to plan so we have to be flexible, but this also makes the work more exciting! We collect data about all different aspects of the volcano that we then take back home with us to look at in more detail. Fieldwork is my favourite part of the job, I love being outside at the mercy of mother nature.

When I’m back in Bristol and based at University I spend my time looking at the data we have collected in the field and trying to better understand it. But this is often broken up by other tasks that make the day more fun. This could be helping to teach the younger students, going to talks and lectures, presenting my work to others or simply talking about science over a coffee. My friend and I made a short video to show just how variable our work is (I even have a little appearance at 14 seconds showing my days work):

‘Volcano Days’ would be the perfect opportunity for enthusiastic school students (like yourselves!) to come and learn more about volcanoes, or for us to bring the ‘volcanoes’ to you. This is something I wish I could have done when I was at school.

In full or half-day sessions we would run a series of varying experiments and demonstrations to show how different parts of volcanoes work, like the famous Coke and Mentos reaction:

I would also build a brand new experiment! This would be used to show how volcanoes ‘breathe’ when new magma is pushed into the Earth beneath them.

Then we would finish the day with a role-play game… If you are in charge when a volcano is threatening to erupt, how would you react?! This sort of exercise is also carried out by the ‘experts’ so it would be interesting to see how you compare.