The 17th Deep-Sea Biology Symposium in Hong Kong I am Véronique Merten, a postdoc in the Deep-Sea Biology Group at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. In my research, I focus on deep-sea organisms, with a particular interest in squids (cephalopods) and whales (cetaceans). By combining environmental DNA analysis with techniques like biologging, net […]
Navigating the Uncharted Waters of Marine CDR (Part 2): The Socio-Oceanography Workshop
As I mentioned in my previous post, every scientist has a different opinion on what success looks like for marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). Some believe that the risks are worth the benefit because the risks of unmitigated climate change are far higher than the risks associated with mCDR. At the other end of the […]
FYORD Travel Grant Reports: Conferences in Asia
17th DSBS HKUST, Hong Kong I am Julian Stauffer, a third-year PhD student in the Deep-Sea Biology working group at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany. I work on benthic habitat mapping with hydroacoustic and imaging methods. My main study regions are oceanic island groups in the North-East Atlantic. I am mainly […]
Navigating the Uncharted Waters of Marine CDR (Part 1): Urgent Problems, Uncertain Solutions
I never thought I would find myself constantly making the point that the topic of my research is the ‘second most important thing’. Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is now necessary on top of strong emissions reductions in order to reach net zero emissions and keep warming at 1.5℃ above preindustrial levels – and it is […]
FYORD Travel Grant Reports: Master’s students travelling to international conferences
The American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (AGU24) I am Carlos Arenas, a doctoral researcher from the Marine Geodynamics department at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. I investigate the thermal structure of the Pegasus Basin, located at the southern end of the Hikurangi Margin, New Zealand. By analyzing seismic records and modelling subsurface […]
Not A Doctor: Lessons I’ve learned from quitting my PhD
I never considered myself a quitter. Usually, I finish what I have started: a 30 minutes high intensity workout after the Christmas holidays for example or the extended version of the third Lord of the Rings movie, also a bachelor program in environmental science and a master in marine science in Kiel. It’s not like […]
A geological sleigh ride with Santa
“Peppy! Did you know…?” Oh, crinkly candy, here we go again. We were hours into Christmas night on our way back north, somewhere over the African Atlantic Coast and the Boss kept talking about geology. Listening to Santa Claus rambling was one of the many perks not mentioned in the job description of the prestigious […]
FYORD Summer School “Dive Into Change”
Throwback to the FYORD summer school, organized by PostDocs for Master’s and PhD students At the beginning of this year, a group of postdocs from GEOMAR and Kiel University, with the great support of FYORD and PACT, came together to brainstorm ideas for a potential summer school tailored for Masters and PhD students in marine […]
Empowering Mothers in Science
Women bring immense potential to science, yet they remain underrepresented in top academic and research roles. In 2022, over 52.3% of all students enrolled at German universities were women, and women earned more than 46% of doctorate degrees. But when it comes to university professors, this number drops dramatically to just 28% (Source: German Federal […]
Lessons from failure: A researcher’s journey through a disastrous experiment
When in January 2020 I started my PhD in Plant Ecology, I felt a mix of enthusiasm and anxiety. I knew the journey I was beginning would be arduous, and that was even before the several events that ended up making it even tougher than I expected. What follows is a recap of perhaps the […]