The Pros and Cons of writing a thesis by publication (& PhD Update: 1 month to go!)

Yep, it’s 1 month today until I submit my thesis to the University of Reading Graduate School. I’m starting to see the finish line after 4 years working on my PhD! So how’s the thesis going? A couple of months ago, my second “science chapter” had just been published, and I was working on the

PhD Update: 3 months to go!

Wait… but it hasn’t been 3 months since your “6-months-to-go” update?! No, it’s only been 2 months (and it feels like it’s only been about 2 weeks!). I promise I can count! It turns out that the “what’s next?” part of my plan has changed a little, and so I need to submit my thesis

PhD Update: Less than 6 months to go!

So I’ve now been working on my PhD for ~3.5 years – which means only one thing – I have to submit my thesis within the next 6 months! (Well, 5.5 because I’m a little late writing this…) Time is a funny thing; in some ways the past few years have flown by, but when

10 tips & take-homes from the London SciComm Symposium

On Friday, Louise and I went along to our first London SciComm Symposium, having both been more and more involved in various SciComm events recently. Louise co-organised Reading’s Planet Earth Pint of Science events this year, did a stand-up set at Science Showoff in London and has been doing some fantastic SciArt, while I’ve been

Pint of Science 2018 – Flooding: Is it all water under the bridge?

Pint of Science is all about taking science outside of the “lab” (or field, or office!) and bringing researchers into local pubs to present their science to people who wouldn’t normally get to hear about and discuss it. I first heard about Pint of Science last year through twitter and was keen to get involved

#SciComm at EGU 2018

Last month, I attended the European Geosciences Union annual conference in Vienna. I wrote about my experience chairing a session and presenting a PICO on my research in a recent post, but this year, I also attended more science communication events and sessions than I had in previous years – so I wanted to mention some of my #scicomm highlights from this year’s EGU!

My experience at EGU 2018: chairing a session & presenting a PICO

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) has one of the largest scientific conferences in the world, held every year in Vienna. Last week, 15,075 scientists from 106 different countries made their way to the Austria Center for more than 17,000 talks, posters and PICO presentations over 666 sessions. I’ve previously seen the Austria Centre likened to

Can we really use El Niño to predict flooding? & 5 Things I learnt writing a Nature paper.

This question is the one that my PhD research, and my most recent paper, aim to address – looking at the links between El Niño and river flow to see if we can use it to provide earlier flood warnings. But the question I’ve been asked a fair few times over the past year in

Melbourne and “Breaking the Barriers”

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that outside of my research, travel is also a big part of my life, and I jump at the chance to explore a new corner of the world! So I not only flew out to Australia for the conference, but afterwards I hired a car with my partner in crime and we took ourselves on a 2-week road trip around Victoria. So in this post, I’ll talk a bit about the HEPEX conference and the week I spent in Melbourne, and you’ll see a couple of travel posts pop up soon as I write about our time exploring the land down under!

Reflecting on 2017 from Snowy Salzburg

Between Christmas and New Years, I took a short trip to Salburg, Austria, for a wedding and to explore a new city. It was great to spend a couple of days in a new place, off-grid (mostly…), and to reflect on the past year. I didn’t know much about Salzburg before visiting, except that it was where Mozart was born and that the Sound of Music was filmed in and around Salzburg. Over the past couple of years of attending the annual European Geosciences Union conference, I’ve fallen in love with Vienna, and was looking forward to seeing a little more of Austria!