Our Mission

PhD students are trained by academics for academia. Hence many recent and current students might not be aware of – or know where to look for – other career paths. A recent article in Nature shows that most early stage scientists are unlikely to end up in faculty positions (this article is accessible here), and that we as a science community need to do a better job highlighting the numerous paths available to PhD-holders that go beyond academia.

The aim of this blog is to share more information on life outside of academia for people with a degree in volcanology and related fields. We aim to publish short bios of people in a variety of non-academic jobs, as well as some statistics about what life looks like for PhD-holders outside academia. We are organizing short bios by job category and decision type (side menu) and provide a summary of anonymous answers in the “summary of answers” page.

If you have a Ph.D. in volcanology and transitioned directly from your Ph.D. or an academic position into the non-academic job market, we value your advice and can learn from your experience. To clarify, we define “academic” as faculty or research positions at universities. If you work at a university in another type of position (e.g. lab manager), or work as a researcher in another type of institution, your experience is valuable to us too. To participate in our project, please take the survey and answer as many of the questions as you feel comfortable with. If you are willing to have your story appear in a bio on the blog, let us know in the survey and we will write up a post with your comments and consent. Even if you do not want your story published, please still contribute anonymous anecdotes and advice.

Alternatively, if you know anyone who fits this description, please feel free to send them the link to our survey:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZyK0t-lhoqRH_c8r6JIngaAeekxvI9t-3l7piROTvOx7Tog/viewform

Blog editors are Madison Myers, Julie Oppenheimer, Megan Saalfeld, Nicole Guinn, Alex Iezzi, and Hannah Dietterich (alumni blog editor).

• Madison completed her Ph.D. at the University of Oregon in 2017, studying the storage, ascent and release of rhyolitic magma at the onset of caldera-forming eruptions. Currently, Madison is an Assistant Professor at Montana State University (USA).
• Julie got her Ph.D. from the University of Bristol (UK) in 2017, studying physical volcanology through analogue experiments. She successfully left academia in 2021 to work in soil management and remediation for an environmental consulting firm (ERM) in Belgium.
• Megan is currently a Ph.D. student at Montana State University, where she is studying the dynamics of magma ascent preceding caldera-forming eruptions. Upon graduation, Megan hopes to pursue a career in an applied geochemistry lab.
• Nicole is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Houston in Texas, where she is studying the applications of satellite and lidar remote sensing to monitor volcanoes. Nicole hopes to pursue a career at a volcano observatory doing volcanic monitoring.
• Alex graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2020 and is currently an NSF postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Santa Barbara, where she is studying infrasound directionality from volcanic eruptions. 
• Hannah graduated with her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon (USA) in 2014, where she studied lava flow emplacement dynamics. Hannah is now a Research Geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Volcano Observatory.