My experience to date

Growing up the mountains were never far away, and I’ve grown up to be most at home in this environment.  Winter is definitely my favourite season. I love the mountains most during winter time, be it for the hiking, climbing, skiing, or snowboarding. This love of the mountains and cold environments was taken to a whole new level in 2011 when I was part of the BSES (now British Exploring) Arctic expedition to Svalbard. It was a fantastic experience which certainly fuelled my taste for adventure and has led to me being part of some wonderful expeditions since…

Nepal 2013
 Everest Base Camp trek (Team leader).

Svalbard (Spring) 2013
 Involved in organising and running a 2 week Arctic Experience and Polar Skills course.

Arctic Norway 2012
 4 weeks in Arctic Norway as trainee leader on BE expedition.

Mount Kilimanjaro  2012
Successfully summited Africa's highest peak.

Svalbard (summer) 2011
Young Explorer on the BSES (now BE) Arctic Adventure expedition.

It’s not all about the big expeditions though! Just as wonderful and without being a ‘big trip’, most of my experience is from ‘playing’ in the mountains of Scotland - and New Zealand when I lived there. As well as some time skiing, snowboarding or climbing in the Alps.

My degree has also taken me to some amazing places, most of which have been fieldtrips in Scotland. Now that I’m beginning to find my feet I’ve been invited on research trips within various fields in Earth Science…
Earlier in the summer I was collecting rock samples on Barra (Outer Hebrides) that will contribute to reconstructing the extent, and de-glaciation history of the ice sheet which sat over Britain during the last glacial maximum.
From glaciers to volcanoes, I am now in Kenya studying the Menengai caldera to understand its geothermal system.

With lot’s more fieldwork planned, as well as a few adventuring expeditions I hope this blog will be exciting and interesting to follow.

The Blog

This blog will allow you to follow me on fieldwork (and the probably some of the non-fieldwork) expeditions around the world.
My posts will cover everything from life in the field, the methods of data/sample collection and the science behind the fieldwork, to planning fieldwork, raising the funds and processing samples/the data collected. 

I am in a very fortunate position just now, in that my career is only just beginning - this allows me to ‘try my hand’ working on a number of projects from very different disciplines within the Earth Sciences – from glaciers to volcanoes! Which is great news for you guys following this blog as I’ll share with you information about a range of topics. 
This summer I have been busy on a variety of projects that have included some work in the field – Skye (mapping), Barra (glaciation and cosmogenic dating) and Kenya (Structural geology, Geothermal and mapping volcanic deposits). 
Unfortunately I wasn’t in a position to be able to blog from Skye or Barra, however the work from both will be ongoing over the next few months so I will post back-dated field accounts of both before posting about the continued work from them.
 
Over the next couple of years my work will take me o many more great destinations including Iceland, Tanzania, Spain, Svalbard and potentially even Antarctica – and that is just the ones already in the planning.

I hope my posts will be both informative and entertaining, and I would love for this to become an interactive blog. So please send me any questions and I will answer as promptly as I can.
For the time being please send your questions via the contact section. I am currently working with the web developers to allow you to send your question to the relevant post J

Schools Outreach

Since 2011 I have been presenting in classes and assemblies at schools across the country. I hope this blog can be an extension on these, and reach a lot more students than I can personally.
I have tried to go into detail, while not being too technical such that classes of all ages can get something out of following the blog, and that teachers can use it as a resource.
Feel free to get in touch (using the contact page) with any requests, feedback, or if you would like to arrange for me to come into your school.  I can tailor my presentation to fit your needs.