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October 30, 2020
Navigating an Academic Career: A Brief Guide for PhD Students, Postdocs and Early Career Faculty
Are you thinking about a career in academia, or navigating your way through the demands of your first few years in an academic job? Jeffrey McDonnell, AGU Fellow and Past President of the AGU Hydrology Section, recently pulled together some advice for people on the academic pathway in a short book. We asked him to share a few nuggets of advice from his book.
October 25, 2019
Career Path Feature: Active Tectonics and “Dirt Grade” Structural Geology with Christine Regalla
I was that kid who loved playing in the dirt. One summer when I was about 10, we had some construction done on our water well, and there was a pile of dirt in our yard from the excavation. That was the coolest pile of dirt. I would make mountains and watch the dirt collapse under its own weight. I would haul the hose over and make flowing torrential rivers …
July 22, 2019
A First Geophysics Job with Project Apollo
In 1972, after my freshman year at MIT, Prof. Nafi Toksoz was kind enough to hire me to work in his research group that used data from seismometers the Apollo astronauts installed on the moon. I learned a lot from these excellent scientists, and (hopefully) helped them a little. It was exciting to have even a very minor part in a group investigating the moon’s structure and evolution. I figure …
July 3, 2019
Workplace Etiquette
When it comes to navigating the workplace, professional etiquette is crucial. The image that you portray–particularly your first impression–is one you will carry throughout the duration of your employment at an organization. This perception that you cultivate with your looks and demeanor, as well as how you choose to represent your workplace during off hours, can serve to either hurt or help your career. Here are some helpful tips for …
May 8, 2019
Stop Talking and Listen
Career arc: A citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, located on Cape Cod, MA, Thornbrugh’s life and work center around serving American Indian Tribal Nations. Although he grew up outside of the Tribal community, his parents instilled in him a strong connection to its culture and values from an early age. While pursuing his doctorate in geography at the University of Arizona, Thornbrugh commuted an hour and 20 minutes roundtrip …
“Activist Engineering”
Career arc: Darshan Karwat loved rockets and space for as long as he can remember. After moving to the U.S. from India, Karwat earned both a BSE and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. While in school, he found himself asking questions about sustainability, social justice and the responsibilities of scientists and engineers in addressing big societal challenges like climate change. Some of those questions …
“Science in Action”
Career arc: As an undergrad, Wilson studied atmospheric science at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, where she had an opportunity to participate in a research collaboration with Duke University. After graduating and getting a job at NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Information (formerly the National Climatic Data Center), she kept in touch with the Principal Investigator from the Duke collaboration and eventually joined her lab for her graduate studies. …
April 1, 2019
Why Should We Care About Past Environments and Climates? Views from a Paleo-Detective.
I study Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology – In the dictionary this field is defined as studies dealing with all aspects of understanding and reconstructing Earth’s past climate and environments – but most people have no idea what that means. How can we study something that is not there anymore, events that happened millions of years ago, and why would anyone want to know what the climate was a decade ago let …
On the Job is an AGU blog, that provides career advice and workforce guidance to geoscience students, early-career and established professionals who are interested in pursuing professional enrichment.