iLEAPS Early Careers Scientist Podcast

In this episode we talk with Aino Korrensalo, a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Enivronmental and Biological sciences at the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu campus. She is researching the carbon cycling in boreal peatland ecosystems. She talks about the interesting aspects of her work as well as the challenges of writing the research proposals. In the end she gives advice to PhD students who are unsure if they would like to continue the academic career that they should not stress about that decision because most paths in life can be walked in both directions.

In this episode of the iLEAPS podcast we have the opportunity to chat with Flobert Ndah who is doing a PhD in the Environmental Ecology research group at the Universty of Easter Finland in Kuopio. Flobert is originally from Cameroon in Central Africa, but moved to Finland for his Master's studies and stayed there until today. He talks about his experiences of moving to a far-away country. He states his passion for nature that inspired him to conduct research in environmental science and talks about the details of his Master's and PhD work. He discussess the challenges of establishing a network of colleagues and aquiring new skills, but says that the learning process is rewarding and fun. Finally, he gives some very good advice for current and future PhD students, such as establishing the healthy work-life balance, staying positive and enjoying the opportunities that PhD studies provide.

Dr Cleo Davie-Martin is a laboratory manager in the Ecosystem- Atmosphere Interactions research group at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and comes from New Zealand. In this episode, she talks about what inspired her to study chemistry and the ins and outs of working in a position of a lab manager and particularly about the opportunities for travel. She also gives advice about structuring the working time to avoid stress over the various different tasks such a specific scientific position often implies.

During this episode of the iLEAPS podcast we chat with Brenda D'Acunha who is currently a PhD student at the The University of British Columbia, Canada. Brenda is originally from Peru and currently studies the biosphere-atmosphere exchange of water and carbon over different types of ecosystems and land-use regions within Brazil utilizing a network of eddy covariance towers to collect data. Brenda talks about the challenges of carrying out fieldwork and collecting data during the global corona virus pandemic and also those challenges associated with fieldwork. Brenda also talks about her role as co-director of the REPU program, Research Experience for Peruvian Undergraduates, an organisation that arranges internships for Peruvian students to enable the development of technological and scientific capacity in Peru. 

For this episode of the iLEAPS podcast we talk to Manuel Flores who is a Masters research student in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Manuel had the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in the forest of Costa Rica during his undergraduate studies at Texas A&M University. Manuel explains more about his experiences as a visiting researcher to Costa Rica and more about the scientific findings behind his recently published article "Assessing Forest Level Response to the Death of a Dominant Tree within a Premontane Tropical Rainforest" published in the journal Forests. During the podcast Manuel also talks about the challenges he has encountered and good experiences that he has had during his academic journey so far. 

Dr. Flávia de Souza Mendes is a remote sensing research scientists from Brazil who has made the transition from academia to industry. Flávia works at Remote Sensing Solutions , a company in Munich, Germany.  During this podcast Flávia chats with us about her career path, how she established a career in remote sensing, the challenges she faced along the way and how she overcame them. Flávia also discusses what inspired her to become a scientist and her current research and role at Remote Sensing solutions, including useful groups that she is a part of such as Ladies of Landsat, @LadiesofLandsat and Remote Sensing Applied to Tropical Environments (both on twitter). Flávia raises important points about mental health and having a support network (friend, family and other scientists) to help overcome the challenges that she has faced during her career such as going to university initially, learning a new language, moving to a new country and finally undertaking a PhD. 

Dr. Eliane Gomes-Alves is a Post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Biogeochemical Processes, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany. Eliane studies Biogenic Volatile Organic Compound (BVOCs) at the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) field station in Brazil. Eliane is an early career member of LAECESS - Latin America Early Career Earth System Scientist network. During this podcast Eliane talks about her current research, career highlights and discusses the challenges faced by both women and Latin American early career scientists and how she tackled navigating her way through these challenges.

This podcast forms part of a series in which we introduce members of the iLEAPS Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) and also the Early Career Scientist Network (ECSN) Committee and forms part of the iLEAPS Online conference during March 2021. Our guest for this podcast is Professor Allison Steiner who is a Professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan. Allison is also a member of the iLEAPS Scientific steering committee. Her research uses and develops models to explore the interactions of the biosphere and atmosphere, with the goal of understanding the natural versus human influence on climate and atmospheric chemistry. In this podcast Allison talks about her scientific interests and how these have shaped her career path. Allison also talks about her role within iLEAPS, what the future might hold for this area of research and gives great advice for early career scientists.

This podcast forms part of a series in which we introduce members of the iLEAPS Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) and also the Early Career Scientist Network (ECSN) Committee and forms part of the iLEAPS Online conference during March 2021. During this podcast we talk to Dr Stefan Wolff who is a research scientists at the Max Planck institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany and the Atmospheric Tall Tower Observatory  (ATTO) in the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. Stefan discusses his career path so far as an early career scientists and explains more about his work at ATTO on work relating to quantifying atmospheric compounds over the rainforest and looking at biosphere-atmosphere processes. Stefan passes on useful advice to early career scientists. He also talks about LAECESS an early careers scientist network in South America.

Buster Mogonong is an Ecologist based in South Africa; working under the internship programme offered by the Expanded Freshwater and Terrestrial Environmental Observation Network (EFTEON) which is hosted by SAEON South African  Environmental Observation Network. Buster's work is to conduct field surveys of the vegetation at the Benfontein nature reserve (in the Northern Cape, roughly 430km from Johannesburg) that lay within the footprint of the EFTEON Flux towers. This area is where two different biomes meet, the Nama-Karoo, and a grassy and Kalahari thornveld savannah.  Buster describes the background to the EFTEON project and his field site, the place where he will be conducting repeat vegetation surveys on 1 hectare measurement plots following the Socio-Ecological Observatory for Southern African Woodlands (SEOSAW) protocol. Buster's work on this site is just beginning and he is open to future discussions with researchers as his work progresses. In addition, Buster gives good advice about the importance of being part of a network as an early career scientist.

For more background on the work at SAMRC take a look at the website here.

To find out more about Bianca's research please take a look at her researchgate profile

Dr. Mulubrhan Balehgn, a researcher now at the University of Florida, USA, founded a blog website back in 2010 calling it "The African Academic/Researcher" as a way of making use of the network he had build up himself during his research studies. He also had a strong desire  to give something back and to help his fellow researchers. Mulubrhan was contacted frequently for advice about how to create opportunities and progress in academia and soon realised he could do something bigger and better than replying to individual requests for advice and so the blog site was born.  Inspired by Mulubrhan's mission, Dr. Dawit Gebregziabher, a researcher based at Mekelle University, Ethiopia, a co-founder of the blog, has been assisting and leading the growth of the blog too. Please listen to this podcast if you are currently an early career researcher based in Africa, it is some of the most heart felt, positive and inspiring advice you will get! In fact, some of this content doesn't only apply to early career researchers but is important for all the scientific community and university leaders to hear the reasons how and why we should help each other and give something back into the academic system.   To access the blog page and search for opportunities then look here:  The African Academic/Researcher 

With special thanks to Dr David Odee, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology who through his contacts and efforts to build an iLEAPS group for Africa this podcast was made possible.