Intern, PhD and Journalism Opportunities

A couple of opportunities have arisen that some of our readers may be interested in:

Policy Intern - The Geological Society

This paid three-month position with the Geological Society of London, is an opportunity to develop an understanding of the interaction of science, policy, and communications - and will give the postholder an opportunity to gain experience into geoscience input into higher education and research, various policy matters and international affairs. The deadline is 10th April, and application details can be found on their website.

PhD Positions - Metals Transport in  the Environment

A number of PhDs into this very relevant and important discipline have been advertised at both Oxford and Durham in the UK, and a number of universities across Europe. More details, including specific project details and deadlines, are available here.

The Guardian - International Development Journalism Competition
A must for any budding journalist, the Guardian are providing a list of themes and asking you to do the rest. Your short article, if selected in the final 16, could lead to you being flown to a developing country to follow it up.

Engineers Without Borders Placements

Engineers without Borders (EWB) have announced their latest batch of placement opportunities - with projects ranging from three to twelve months. Whilst these placements are particularly suited to those with an engineering background - there are some water projects which a geoscientist could make a positive contribution to. Find out more about these placements on the EWB website, or by downloading their information leaflet. They are also running a couple of summer schools (India and Tanzania) that may be of interest.

PhD Opportunities

There are a number of interesting opportunities listed below for people thinking about doing a PhD after they graduate from BSc, MSc or MSci courses. Also don't forget you can find some information on MSc courses on our website, and the deadline for the DFID Graduate Scheme is the 20th March 2012.

PhD Opportunities:

The University of Liverpool are advertising possible funded PhD positions related to seismology, flooding, drought and environmental change. The University of Portsmouth also have possible funded PhD topics, with one very interesting one looking at hazard assessment, slope instability and palaeoseismology in Central Asia. There is also an interesting PhD Opportunity in Germany, at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre, Potsdam - looking at slope instability in seismotectonically active mountain regions  - also in Central Asia. Don't forget you can use sites such as findaphd.com to help you in hunting down good opportunities.

Listening, Communicating and Diplomacy - The Importance of Geologists Developing Soft Skills for Effective Development

Last week I was at a very interesting seminar at King’s College London, given by Dr Katie Oven of Durham University. She spoke about her PhD work, building resilience to geophysical hazards in rural areas, particularly looking at landslide prone areas in Nepal.

One of the key issues to come out of the seminar was the balance between community participation and expert knowledge. When should discussions with communities about, for example, where to place a road stop and the expert judgement of engineering geologists begin? It seems this is a very difficult but important balance. In the case outlined above, the Engineering Geologist has an important understanding of many of the challenges in determining a road route. From the rock mass quality, to groundwater and drainage questions, to issues of slope stability – their knowledge and study when correctly applied can help increase the quality, effectiveness and sustainability of the project.

In the same manner, however, local communities must also be consulted and heavily involved at all stages of the project. They have understanding of local issues, cultural practices, high risk areas and the quality of local materials that is very useful to the geological and engineering teams. An expert working closely with the community can learn a lot, and also impart knowledge and understanding that will help the community.

Whilst working on water projects I came across many similar issues. Local water engineers would want to use divining methods to assess for the potential of water, whilst my western mind-set would find this very difficult to accept. We would also have to work closely with the wider community in order to understand their problems with water, and encourage a sense of community-led demand for clean water. Without this approach water projects were failing as the community felt no sense of ownership or responsibility for them. Somebody had come and talked to a couple of people (normally to a couple of the men – who don’t normally collect the water anyway!) and then put a well in. They had then left with no training or support for the community in how to manage and maintain their water source.

It seems to me that these two examples highlight that geologists wishing to work on successful, effective and sustainable development projects need to work on a number of ‘soft’ key skills as well their more well-practiced ‘hard’ skills (such as hammering rock, measuring dip and strikes and mapping landslides)!

LISTENING: It is essential that geologists learn to listen to what communities are telling them – ensuring that they get the opportunity to explain their needs, thoughts and opinions about projects. Geologists should try and listen to as wide variety of people as possible, especially remembering particularly vulnerable groups (such as women, children, the elderly and disabled). This listening exercise should be (i) genuine, not just a token, ticked that box thing; (ii) active – researching culture, customs and aspects of language to understand more fully what you are being told and what you see.

COMMUNICATION: Geologists need to learn to communicate clearly – explaining their ideas simply but effectively. Their communication needs to respond to what they have heard from the community and local authorities, it needs to encourage and strengthen the community’s sense of involvement and ownership of the project.

CREATIVITY & DIPLOMACY: In terms of the balance between involvement and expert knowledge, I believe those involved in projects where these can conflict need to work to present feasible options to communities and get their input on where to proceed. There is a strong need for creativity in presenting ideas in order to win communities over, whilst also having the humility and listening skills to genuinely accept that the communities knowledge can help develop and improve a project.

It would be very interesting to hear of any other thoughts about certain ‘soft skills’ that geologists require for working on development projects? Also I’d very much recommend a paper written by Mike Petterson et al (2008), Communicating Geoscience to Indigineous People: Examples from the Solomon Islands – which is available in the Geological Society (London) Special Publication on Communicating Environmental Geoscience (Ed. Liverman, Pereira and Marker). This paper looks at best practice for communicating geoscience knowledge relating from gold mining to volcanic hazards, and draws out many helpful points.  

Postgraduate Courses: Engineering Geology

Over the coming months we will be trying to review a range of postgraduate 'MSc' courses that offer interesting options for geologists interested in applying their skills to development situations. The first looks at 'Engineering Geology' with a particular focus on the course offered at the University of Leeds (due to the author's experience). Similar courses can be found at Portsmouth University, Imperial College and Newcastle University. 

After studying a lot about the thermodynamics of metamorphism, whether the mantle convects in one or two layers and how water is recycled at subduction zones - I decided I wanted to pursue a more practical focused geoscience Masters course. After doing some research I decided to study for the MSc Engineering Geology course at the University of Leeds in their School of the Earth and Environment.

The Course

The course was very wide ranging (one of its great appeals), covering many aspects of geoscience, with modules in soil mechanics, rock mechanics, engineering geology and site investigation, hydrogeology and contaminated land, and advanced engineering geology (inc. analysis of geohazards). I therefore got a wide range of subject matter – from groundwater to design of foundations, tunnelling to landslides, earthquake engineering to ground investigation. The course has since developed, with the advanced engineering geology module now called ‘hazards, resilience and sustainable engineering’. This offers an exciting opportunity for students to grapple with some of the issues facing geologists tasked with building resilience and promoting sustainablity. 

The course was well taught and structured – with contributions from those with an engineering background, as well as a geoscience background. Site visits, laboratory exercises, fieldwork and seminars from those in industry contributed to a wide range of teaching environments. Each student is expected to complete a dissertation project, which accounts for around a third of their overall mark. The project gives you an opportunity to focus in on a particular area of interest, or potentially work with a company/consultant that interests you. The department has some excellent industrial links, and has had a number of very creative dissertation projects in the past. From roads in Ethiopia, to seismic hazard at a dam site in Albania to artificial ground in Glasgow (the latter being the less glamorous project I had to endure).

Prospects for those interested in a career within development

Although there wasn’t a lot of mention of its applications to international development, and the majority of people on this course will go on to work in UK-based roles, a lot of the skills developed can be applied and used in development situations. A number of large consultancies use engineering geologists for major projects they are doing in developing countries. The basics of hydrogeology taught within the course are possibly sufficient to transition into a career within ‘water and sanitation’ – although further reading into a number of aspects of community development and appropriate technologies would need to be undertaken. A career in geohazard assessment is also an option (having covered many aspects of slope stability, mass movements and earthquake engineering). The academic rigour of the course established you well for further postgraduate study – with the potential to undertake a PhD in a range of subjects.

Strengths: Broad and relevant subject knowledge; highly regarded course; good opportunities; opportunity to focus within your dissertation; opportunity to engage with issues of risk, resilience and sustainable engineering; well resourced department, library and university.

Weaknesses: Currently no overseas fieldwork unless you’re lucky enough to get your dissertation overseas (this may be changing soon); little funding support (NERC have recently withdrawn their sponsorship; not enough opportunities to get experience with relevant IT software (only limited use of ArcGIS)

Overall: An interesting and informative course that gives you a great skill set. For those interested in a career working within developing countries (for some or all of the year) this course can lead to a number of opportunities.

Please do get in contact with any questions you have about how I found studying this course – for more information and more formal questions you can visit the Leeds University Departmental webpages.