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17 August 2012
So you’re a new geosciences grad student…
So you’re a new geosciences grad student…and you’re getting ready to start your first semester! Hopefully you’ve chosen a great department and surrounded yourself with professors and students who will excite and challenge you. You’re probably also plowing through a bunch of paperwork and maybe taking a training course on how to be a teaching/graduate/research/etc. assistant. If, at some point in all this, you say “What the heck did I get myself into?” and start feeling panicky, don’t worry – we all do this. Here are a few things to remember as you dive into the deep end of the pool:
25 May 2012
Stages of numerical modeling
I’m currently working on some modeling for my thesis. For unrelated reasons, I happened to read a description of the Kübler-Ross model for stages of grief, and I realized that the cycle actually describes pretty accurately what the past couple of weeks have been like for me. Not only that, but it’s gotten to the point where even if I get my model to run, I’m immediately suspicious of the results. However, I guess since the model is running, I’ve made progress. That doesn’t mean I don’t still have issues.
28 March 2012
If you were to wander into my office this afternoon…
…this is the scene you’d see playing out.
30 January 2012
What’s your geologic genealogy?
Every once in a while this topic pops up among geologists – and the phrase “who is your grandfather” really means “who was your advisor’s advisor?” It’s kind of fun to trace your geologic heritage, so I thought I’d give mine a go. This usually involves looking at graduate degrees (most people don’t list who their undergraduate advisor was, and when you go back farther in time they rarely talk about anything but who the person studied under for their PhD).
18 November 2011
Who reads this blog? Followup to a departmental talk on geoblogging
Because AGU’s Fall Meeting is coming up fast, and because we have a lunchtime seminar in my research group, I volunteered to preview my AGU talk. This is something that we often do as a trial run, although since the seminar runs for an hour and AGU talks only last 15 minutes, there’s usually a lot of condensing that goes on afterwards. This year at AGU, I was invited to give a talk in a public affairs session – not my usual venue as a volcanologist. But the session is perfect for a geoblogger:
PA33C. Earth Science Communication in a Changing Media Landscape I Wed. December 7, 1:40 PM – 3:40 PM; Room 302
14 September 2010
A question of time
*Note: Having been temporarily flattened by my yearly fall cold, I’m putting up a non-geology post that I was working on earlier this month and have just enough energy to finish now. I’ll make it back to talking about andesitic eruption deposits just as soon as I emerge from the haze of cold drugs. ‘Tis the season for the arrival of new grad students (geology and otherwise), and ’tis also …
27 January 2010
Hooray!
Quals are over and passed (pending some proposal rewriting and me promising to take a thermodynamics class in the near future). It’s nice not having that stress hanging over my head – now I can relax and get some research done! (Not to mention getting back to blogging more often…)
24 October 2009
GSA Update #3
I always head to GSA with good intentions (i.e., actually writing about things the day they happen), but I usually end up joining the ranks of those catching up with their writing instead. (There’s nothing wrong with this, since I’m not getting paid to write on a schedule or anything, but it annoys me when I do it.) Tuesday at GSA was another great chance to see talks; lots of …
10 September 2009
Speaking well
I won’t touch on the political parts of the President’s speech Wednesday night (or the fallout from adults not being able to behave like adults, on both sides), but I do want to write about the way in which it was delivered. Public speaking is a big part of being a geologist, whether you’re talking to a lab section, lecturing to a class full of hundreds of people, or giving …
31 August 2009
O_o
I don’t usually use emoticons for post titles, but today warrents one. Apparently, everyone at UB had an 8 or 9 AM class today, and they ALL DROVE TO SCHOOL. Meaning parking was gone by 9. Not 10, not 11 – 9 AM. And there were traffic jams. (If you’ve ever been to Buffalo, you’ll know that traffic jams of any sort are usually pretty rare. And by my DC-area …
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.