Been a while since I have gone onto my website to update my blog. My apologize. I have been working on a couple of papers and it has been taking up a lot of my time and keeping my mind distracted. Not that the distraction was a bad thing, but I did end up being late for a couple of meetings because I lost track of time. Got back on my feet and started keeping track of time better (by better I mean make sure I get notifications about upcoming meetings...).
Research Update
This week is mainly a research update blog, nothing new outside of work at the moment with the province of Ontario still being in a state of emergency. I guess the only outside of work update would be Mothers Day this past Sunday. It was the first Mothers Day where a majority of the worlds population were not able to physically spend the day with their parents. It is a tough time to be a part from the people that we love, but we all have to play our role in stopping the spread of COVID-19. We are starting to see improvements, but we are not out of the thick of it yet. Even though we could not physically see our mothers on Sunday, everyone found new ways to show their appreciation. For this was the second Mothers Day I celebrated. In the UK, Mothers Day was on March 22nd. Although I could not see my own mother on both days I still sent her messages wishing her safety and good health.
Right, now for the research update. For those who have not seen my twitter feed in the last month, I received minor revisions for my lava flow and radar interpretation paper. It was with joy when I found out the revisions were only minor. Most of it is fixing up the figures and adding a bit more to the results and discussion section. I have until the 22nd of May to submit an edited version of the manuscript. I have already completed minor grammar edits and edited half of my figures. I am currently working editing the figures in my paper that are maps of my study site. I reached a temporary impasse yesterday when I realized some of the data is on a hard drive that is in the lab on campus...Luckily, I can re-create some of it so I am able to finish editing everything, it will just take a little longer than originally planned.
I also submitted the first draft of my second paper on estimating the post-shock temperatures of impact melt from Mistastin Lake in Labrador. I have received some feedback already from my supervisors and plan to start editing it after I have finished working on my lava flow and radar interpretation paper. On top of the Mistastin paper I am also writing a draft paper on my Iceland research. Now this definitely took some time to resume writing because some data plots still needed to be created in order to finish writing the results section and start the discussion section. My supervisor, Dr Catherine Neish, also showed me some new data I should include in my paper. It is digital elevation data from the ArcticDEM database. The database contains elevation data of the entire Arctic and countries around its border, Iceland included. The data is at a 2 m/pixel resolution, which is the same as high-resolution topography data available for Mars. This is the perfect opportunity to compare the lava flows I have studied in Iceland to Martian lava flows. I plan to have a draft finished by the end of this month.
I am very optimistic, but I hope to have both of these papers published by the end of the summer. My final PhD year will be a lot easier if these papers are published by the end of the summer. I will then only have to worry about one last paper, which is an expanded version of the current Mistastin paper, and the literature review, introduction and conclusion chapters for my thesis.
Thinking About the Future
It is the penultimate year of my PhD so I have started to look into potential postdoc and research positions at institutions across the United States, Canada and Europe. I have not looked outside of these countries yet, but I might look to other countries depend on the opportunities available. Was thinking Japan and Australia as well. I plan to start reaching out to potential employers next month. The thought of doing that gives me déjà vu of when I started reaching out to professors about grad school positions. The thought is scary, but I am excited to know what the next step in my research journey is and where it will be located. I know to never let location limit your professional development, so I am making sure I keep my options open right now.
I have also been keeping up with research collaborations. The team I worked with during my time at LPI in 2018, who I now call my friends, are working on two more papers. One is on a mapping project and the other is looking into more details on the temperatures of permanently shadowed regions in the lunar south pole. We hope to have the drafts finished and papers published by end of the summer - early fall. We are keeping our fingers crossed!
That is everything in terms of research! Oh! Before I forget. For this weeks "What I am Cooking/Baking?" I am slow cooking chicken breasts in a cream of chicken stock and stuffing. If anyone is interested in the recipe let me know and I will forward you it. I will be posting the finished product on my Twitter and Instagram account @GavinOnTheMoon and @gavin4science_94.
See you all next time!