Published online 7 November 2007
Postdoc journal
Meet my lab minion
Chris Rowan
Chris Rowan is a postdoctoral student in the geology department at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Some day I'll have minions to do all those menial laboratory tasks for me. Some day...
There comes a point in your academic career when you can employ minions to do menial lab work for you. Sadly, I have yet to reach that point. When I need someone to spend most of their working hours sitting in a magnetically shielded laboratory, coaxing the ancient magnetic signals from three-billion-year-old South African lavas, there's only one person that I can delegate the task to: me. Unfortunately, it's not just a matter of placing my samples in a fancy machine and instantly getting the data I want; every sample has to be measured a dozen times or more, as I attempt to destabilize unwanted overprints with ever-stronger blasts of heat or artificial magnetic fields.
Weeks of repetitive measurements might not sound that intellectually stimulating. But I actually enjoy getting my hands dirty in the lab — I take great satisfaction from the thought that I'm personally uncovering long-buried clues about southern Africa's geological history. Besides, I'm not simply repeating my PhD research. I'm using an unfamiliar machine to analyse ancient lavas with magnetic quirks and subtleties quite different from the much younger sediments I've studied before. Even now, I'm still learning the tricks of my scientific trade, and gaining the broader experience necessary to supervise my future minions effectively, should I ever be given any.
Postdoc Journal Keepers 2007
-
Moira SheehanMoira Sheehan is a postdoc in plant breeding and genetics at Cornell University.
-
Peter JordanPeter Jordan is a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland.
-
Maria Ocampo-HafallaMaria Thelma Ocampo-Hafalla is a research fellow at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute.
-
Chris RowanChris Rowan is a postdoctoral student in the geology department at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
