My PhD supervisor once told me that your thesis is never really completed. Given that his PhD, like mine, involved palaeomagnetic measurements of crustal deformation in New Zealand, I had good reason to believe him. Indeed, I've discovered for myself that an academic move hasn't meant a completely clean slate, because I've brought a fair amount of unfinished business with me to the Southern Hemisphere for my postdoc.

Some of this was unexpected — it turns out that the small matter of 5,000 miles hasn't stopped some students I'd been supervising from soliciting my advice. But I also find my old research still claiming my attention. I have papers on New Zealand tectonics and the growth of magnetic minerals in marine sediments to correct, finish or even start writing, and I still find myself adding new papers on these subjects to my to-read pile.

Having more publications is nice, but this is not my only motivation: I'm also convinced that the best way to develop as a researcher is to move away from a single-minded focus on one project, and keep several lines of inquiry open. This means following up on the questions raised by my past research as well as my current project. Who knows, maybe one day I'll also find myself supervising a PhD... using palaeomagnetism to measure deformation in New Zealand.