Castles and Coprolites

I have been meaning to write this post for a while, but have been busy behind the scenes sorting out all the logistics. Finally I can announce that Earthslides is to be relocated at Newcastle, as a new facility within the McCord Centre . After many years providing one of the best thin section processing services in the world (seriously!), Earthslides owner Julie Boreham is retiring in June. We have been in discussions since last year about Newcastle taking over the facility. The whole process has taken up a large part of the past year for me, from getting permission from the university, securing the funding to purchase the equipment, to finding a space at the university to put it in (harder than you could ever imagine!), to finally this morning, our first meeting with estates to assess the new space and go over the requirements for getting it refitted. This has been a long term dream of mine - setting up my own micromorphology lab, where we can train researchers and develop amazing c...

Hello blogging friends, and apologies yet again for the lack of updates. Did I mention that I was on sabbatical at the moment? You would think this would mean more time to do blogging, but in fact it has been a whirlwind of catch up for the NERC and Wellcome Trust projects, both of which have gone amazingly well and have produced some really exciting results. So I've been busy working with the team to start writing up results, presenting at conferences, and crucially, applying for more grants to keep the research going (and keep everyone employed...). Tangentially related to this is some good news - firstly, I passed my 2 year probation period at Newcastle (I've been here 2 years and 7 months now), and in the same week, I also found out I am being promoted to Senior Lecturer. Hurray! I think the 2 grants went a long way towards getting that promotion. And this is where luck yet again plays a role in an academic career, even after getting over the many hurdles it takes to actua...