Photo from the wharf before boarding the ship. Note the high-vis and hardhat for safety during operations.

Studying a region of the world without seeing it firsthand is a bit like moving to a city that you have never been to. You can look at pictures, check the weather, dive into the data, run google searches, and connect with other people who have been to the region. But it is hard to fully understand what a place is like without getting to spend time there. That is why so many scientists (myself included) value participating in field work.

I am currently on the Australian icebreaker RSV Nuyina (pronounced ‘noy-yee-nah’) with 60 other scientists and around 60 crew members. One of the questions I get asked most frequently is “How did you end up here?” It’s a good question. As a Utahn — a land-locked state — sailing on an Australian ship in the Southern Ocean, I do seem a bit out of place. I never would have guessed that my career path would take me here, but I’m glad it did. 

I completed my undergraduate education at Westminster University in physics. I enjoyed all of my course work but was most invested in the applied physics topics. I also completed a minor in environmental studies, mostly motivated by my love of recreating in the outdoors. If I could complete a class while hiking in the mountains or standing in a river, that was ideal.

A pivotal moment during my time at Westminster was studying abroad in Mongolia. I participated in Round River Conservation Studies which is a program that focuses on completing conservation research while living and taking classes in the field. We traveled by plane, train and car to get to a strictly protected area on the northern border of Mongolia. The experience of crawling out of my tent every morning and being surrounded by the trees I was writing species reports about was incredible.

Some filter units mounted on the ship’s railing.

Getting my sea legs

That experience hooked me on field work. When I graduated and started looking into graduate school options, getting to participate in research campaigns was at the top of my list. I started applying to programs in physics-related fields and decided atmospheric science was the ideal path to follow. I also had an interest in polar science (science focused around the northern or southern poles) but thought that finding a position in that topic would be difficult. During my application process, I sent emails to potential advisors at all of the schools I applied to. I was planning on moving away from Utah and accepting a position at a different institution. However, my advisor, Jay Mace, reached out with an offer I couldn’t refuse: to study clouds in the Southern Ocean region.

Jay has been highly involved in Southern Ocean cloud and precipitation research since connecting with Alain Protat, a researcher at the Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne, Australia. The two have collaborated for around 15 years on projects relating to the Southern Ocean. Eventually, Jay found himself participating in research voyages on Australian vessels, and soon he was looking for a student to cover some of the research voyages. That is where I came in.

My first time on a ship was a two-week voyage on the RV Investigator out to a buoy in the Southern Ocean. It is an established research location with annual voyages to retrieve and replace the buoy. The location of the buoy is right along the storm track making the voyage quite rough in terms of swell and weather. However, it is a good test of how a person deals with seasickness and life on a ship.

Once I had some experience at sea, more opportunities tended to come up. My second voyage was a 65-day voyage called Multiple Investigations of the Southern Ocean (or MISO, for short) where we sailed from Hobart, Tasmania to the coast of Antarctica and back up to Perth, Australia. During the voyage, we spent about two days close enough to the continent to see it. In discussing my third voyage that I’m currently on, Jay said “think of the best two days from MISO. It will be like that for four weeks.” All of the voyages I have participated in have been in the Southern Ocean, but even with the Australian research vessels and voyages, many questions still remain about the area.