School of Earth & Environment News from SEE 2011/12 Student Experience Student success is partly influenced by how an individual participates in educationally purposeful activities; in SEE we have been working on initiaWelcome tives and activities that combine social interaction Welcome to the School of Earth and Environment with academic learning to enhance the overall newsletter. student experience and create a sense of belonging to the School community. In this issue Student Experience More on this: Student Experience Employability Leeds Students in Vancouver Schools Engagement & Widening Participation PhD Profiles Research News Bites New Staff Student Employability In January 2012, the School appointed its first Student Employability Officer, Linda Hartland. Linda’s role is to undertake a range of initiatives to enhance the employability of our students. This work will include engaging with current and past students, employers, academics and the Careers Centre. More on this: Student Employability Leeds Students in Vancouver Undergraduate Open Days We are in demand! An impressive 327 prospective undergraduates and 662 total guests visited the School of Earth and Environment from November to March this year. They travelled from across the country and further afield including Belgium and Cyprus! Undergraduate Team at Networking event in Vancouver A total of 22 current students of the School attended the Vancouver Exploration Roundup last month. The meeting is one of the top 3 industryfacing events globally and attracted just short of 8,000 delegates from the mining and mineral exploration sector worldwide. The visit was set up by the School’s Society of Exploration Geophysics In the Palaeontology Laboratory (SEG) Chapter who took advantage of strong research and industrial links between the Rob Chapman and UBC, Vancouver, and the Canadian ex- More on this: Open Days ploration industry. More on this: Leeds Students in Vancouver Schools Engagement & Widening Participation Green Impact Initiative School achieves Silver Award! The School has a lively schools engagement programme, with both staff and students delivering activities. Our contribution to the Leeds Festival of Science provides a showcase for the range of activities we offer. More on this: Schools Engagement The School has recently taken part in the Green impact Initiative achieving a Silver Award. Green Impact encourages pro-environmental behaviours amongst staff within a university or college. It empowers sustainability champions within their workplace, helping them gain recognition for their environmental efforts, whilst playing on the competitive spirit of staff working in teams. Visitors dress in polar clothing in the Antarctic Zone More on this: Green Impact PhD Profiles ESSI PhD Student – Hollie IGT PhD Student – Sandra Karl Romain PhD Title: Investigating the source mechanisms of low-frequency seismic events in volcanoes Read Sandra’s profile: Sandra Karl Large-scale preserved dune sets of Navajo Sandstone, Poison Spider Trail, near Moab, Utah. PhD Title – Reconstruction of 3D eolian-dune architecture from 1D core data through application of outcrop analogue data Read Hollie’s profile: Hollie Romain Ash venting of Soufriere Hills volcano, March 2012 ICAS PhD Student – Amber Leeson PhD Title: The Evolution and Impact of Supraglacial Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet SRI PhD Student – Paola Hernandez Montes De Oca PhD Title – Assessing the vulnerability and resilience of SMEs to climate change: a developing country perspective Read Paola’s Profile: Paola Hernandez Montes De Oca Processing an ice core from the Larsen C ice shelf at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge Read Amber’s profile: Amber Leeson Employees of a small business cleaning prawns. Oil industry and prawn industry are the main activities in Cd. del Carmen, Campeche, Mexico. Research News Bites Institute for Climate and Research at the School of Earth and Environment is within four institutes: Atmospheric Science ICAS Earth Surface Science Institute ESSI Violent storms provide testing conditions for research scientists Better forecasting of violent storms, such as those Flumes and lasers test elite sportswear battering the British Isles over December 2011, Fabric used to make what is believed to be the could be possible in the future. fastest swimsuit to ever go on the market was tested by ESSI researchers who simulated conditions close to those experienced by elite swimmers. View from FAAM research aircraft (Knippertz) Full story: Stormy weather Full story: Swimming technology Unravelling the Causes of the Ice Age Megafauna Extinctions Was it humans or climate change that caused the extinctions of the iconic Ice Age mammals (megafauna) such as the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth? Full story: woolly mammoths Deforestation in the rainforests of West Africa reduces rainfall over the rest of the forest Deforestation in the rainforests of West Africa reduces rainfall over the rest of the forest, according to new ICAS research published in Geophysical Research Letters. Full story: Deforestation Institute of Geophysics and Sustainability Research Tectonics IGT Institute SRI Volcanic plumbing exposed Low carbon, moderate income and long life Two new studies into the “plumbing systems” that lie under volcanoes could bring scientists closer to predicting large eruptions. Full story: Eruptions A new study shows that countries with high incomes and high carbon emissions do not achieve higher life expectancies than those with moderate incomes and lower carbon emissions. Full story: Live long Major new project targets earthquake dynamics in Turkey IGT Scientists Dr David Cornwell, Professor Greg Houseman, Dr Geoffrey Lloyd, Dr Richard Phillips, Dr Sebastian Rost, Dr Tim Wright, and Dr Tadashi Yamasakihave secured £1m from the Natural Environment Research Council to study one of the most active faults on Earth – the North Anatolian Fault. The UN Climate Change Conference in Durban Looks to Leeds for Lessons on Decarbonising Full story: Tectonic Plates Cities at Zero Net Cost Investing 2% of a modern city's GDP in low carbon and energy efficient opportunities for ten years would reduce that city's carbon emission levels by 40% at no net cost, according to research by the Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF) presented at the United Full story: Low carbon New Staff Professor Suraje Dessai has joined the School as Chair in Climate Change Adaptation. He was based at University of Exeter as Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Geography. His research focuses on the intersection between climate science and decision-making under uncertainty. His research focuses on the intersection between climate science and decision-making under uncertainty. Suraje trained as an interdisciplinary environmental scientist at UEA and has worked on climate change research in the UK, US, Portugal, Australia, East Timor and The Netherlands. Professor Paul Glover will be joining the School in June 2012 as Professor of Petrophysics. Currently based at the University of Laval, Paul has had 11 years oil industry experience and 19 years research experience. His research interests include; fluid-flow in porous and fractured reservoirs by experiment, modelling and field measurements, the use of electro-kinetic behaviour of rocks and surface conduction to predict reservoir quality, sub-surface sequestration of carbon dioxide and development of new laboratory petrophysical and downhole logging techniques. Dr David Hodgson will be joining the School in August 2012 as Reader in Applied Sedimentology. He is currently based a Liverpool as a Lecturer in Sedimentology and Stratigraphy and works on the current Slpoe2 and Lobe projects for the Strat Group. His research interests include the architecture of deep-water systems in complex and contained settings, and the use of turbidite bed thickness statistics in the identification of submarine environments and basin settings. Dr Taija Torvela also joins Leeds in August 2012 as Lecturer in Structural Geology. She comes from University of Helsinki, Taija’s research interests include; 4D behaviour of shear zones during orogenesis; mid-crustal flow and associated processes within orogenies; filtering and processing seismic reflection data for structural geology research; interpretation of geological data and the application of structural geology methods in soft-sediment deformation. Dr Paul Upham has joined the School as Senior University Research Fellow (CIER & SRI) from Manchester Business School. His research interests include: the interface of non-state actors and energy technologies, drawing on psychological, sociological (STS) and environmental management and science literatures. As much of his work has been funded by EPSRC, there has been a strong empirical theme to it, but at Leeds he is keen to deepen the theoretical side of his research and to investigate potential points of integration across the sub-disciplines. Full profiles: New Staff 2012
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