Profile

I’m an ecologist, who accidentally fell into working in Space (Whoops). I wouldn’t consider myself an engineer  tbh, more someone who works with engineers and marvels at the awesome stuff they do. I live in the auld Peoples Republic of Cork, currently doing a PhD looking at our Oceans from Space. I’d be a fairly active person, I’m mad about the auld outdoors (surfing, hiking, roadtrips  etc.), martial arts, and most recently climbing (terrified of heights but why not sure).

I love travelling – been to four continents now and always planning my next adventure. I’m very  happy my PhD studies do involve quite a bit of travel, so my travel bug is managed.

Music n’ movies are my zen-space. I have a fairly eclectic taste, but once the headphones are on I’m in my own little world. I’m just as happy sitting in the cinema with my mates, or just solo (with popcorn with Malteasers mixed in), soaking in the big screen escapism n’ letting the silver screen whisk me away on an adventure.

Well…. my work really revolves around my PhD. In a nutshell, I’m looking at huge loads of satellite images of the Ocean surface and getting my computer to do some serious number-crunching to make sense of it all.  I take a lot of images of temperature of the ocean surface, stick them together, and extract a single image of the surface structure over that time period…. and… it’s… AMAZING. First off, the results are beautiful, the ocean surface is wonderfully complex, with inconceivably huge systems churning away, shaping what I see in my results. Secondly, the best thing is realising how little I know about it. I see this incredibly complex image, and now have to go and figure out what makes it the way it is. What is that structure off the southwest coast of Ireland, and how does it change over time? How does this affect folks who live off fisheries in Cork, or Galway? I have all these questions fizz-popping about in my brain, and then off I go to do some statistics, compare my results to other peoples data, and get some clarity on some of these questions. After all that analysis, reading, and thinking (brain-pain), I have to write it all up into a thesis that makes some sense… that’s going to be fun… 🙂

But as with any job, you don’t just do a single task. I also get to work with communities, using my experiences in figuring out how to work in space, to help them spot opportunities for themselves, and work out how to seize those opportunities. That’s a seriously rewarding part of my work, when I see someone figure out what they can do with Space technology in their everyday lives, and they just light up.

I really enjoy being the person who helps the engineers and scientists to talk to the folks who are looking for solutions. It’s really challenging, often they speak different languages (all english, but the same words have completely different meanings), but you know you’ve got the ball rolling when they start chatting to each other and I can take a step back. I never realised how important it is, the social side of technology, and it’s an area I would like to move more into after I cross the finish line of my PhD marathon.

Climate Change is a reality which unfortunately you folks, our next generation will bear the brunt of. Raising awareness of the changes coming down the line, and the impacts they will need to deal with is vitally important. The European Space Agency has led the development of huge archives of Earth system measurements, which can be accessed and explored using the ESA Climate Change Initiative App.

This really cool info-app contains visualisations, explanations and nifty tools to explore and examine how the Earth is changing as Climate Change progresses. I can use it to tell a story about Climate Change. I’d like to travel to schools and teach them about Climate Change, Climate Adaptation, and their potential as Irish citizens to make a difference. It would also give me the chance to talk to students about my career, and opportunities for them in Space, highlighting that space isn’t just about astronauts and giant fireworks. Space is so much more… it’s the codes that keep things running smoothly, the people translating the data, the folks in ground stations keeping the satellites and astronauts safe and healthy, the compounds covering space craft to protect their delicate electronics from radiation, the engineers and scientists making these incredible devices which work in the harsh Space environments, and so…much…more.