Geochemistry, geology, education in a digital world

Introducing myself

1 minute read

Published:

Hi, my name is Thi. I am pursuing a doctorate in Geology. I seek to understand processes occurring in Earth’s interior, in the present-day, and ideally, the past. I have found that academic blogs in geology tend to fall into one of these categories….

  • Evidently was only created to fulfill the goal of personalizing all pages of a pre-designed website template. Usually has 2 posts from 2018.
  • Relays findings from short-term scientific research activities, expeditions, etc. Is updated by a team of researchers, or the self-proclaimed writer of the group. Sometimes this satisfies broader impact statements, or counts as outreach to the public.
  • Is owned by a corporation, but has a lot of different authors and the range of posts is surprisingly useful (AGU blogosphere, believe it or not)
  • Thoughtfully updated on a regular basis over several years. The author seems to enjoy the act of writing, introspection, and reflection. Writes about a variety of topics, not just their current topic of study. They tend to be written by senior scientists who have a lot of personal anecdotes and warm testimonials to share.

Which one is this going to be? I am just as curious as you are!

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How science made me believe in Santa Claus

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These days, I bounce ideas often with James Adams, an anthropologist who is also a postdoctoral researcher in the CLIMATE Justice Initiative. He has motivated me to read more of non-Latour authors about the topic of scales and Earth. Real growth since the last time I talked about Latour! Recently, our conversation has turned to information and the Internet. Our conversation reminded me about a secret that I have held for decades, but I am ready to come clean: Science made me believe in Santa Claus. Okay, let me explain.

Excel vs. IgPet. An informal geochemistry plotting showdown

14 minute read

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Note from present day Thi (February 2024): This software/data narrative about my dissertation work was written in 2022 just a few months before I completely switched over to using R. Fascinating stuff.

Thoughts from reading Bruno Latour

2 minute read

Published:

I was recently encouraged to check out the book Science in Action, by a geoscience educator friend of mine. By happenstance, I stumbled upon a forum where Bruno Latour’s work non-human agency was referenced in relation to anthropomorphizing COVID. I usually don’t expect old philosophers’ writing to be immediately relevant in the year 2022, but in fact, Bruno Latour has been quite active, writing, speaking, and exploring new fields, all while emeritus. And it turns out Latour has picked up an interest in the Earth Sciences. In fact, he’s collaborated with geologists to propose an expansion of work on the Critical Zone. I was surprised to find on his website, several articles and lecture transcripts going back to at least 2016 about this topic.