In the Company of Volcanoes

- Guest blog! Craig Magee Volcanic systems are complicated. Nearly as complicated, it turns out, as figuring out how to introd uce your first blogpost. I’ve finally decided on... This is me trying to be artistic with a  jaunty selfie in front of Lake Taupo Hello! I’m Craig. Usually I introduce myself as a volcanologist. It’s much easier and sounds more exciting than saying ‘I’m a structural igneous geologist’, which then requires deciphering.Unfortunately, given the expertise of the usual reporters for this most excellent blog, I cannot really pass myself off as a volcanologist. The only active volcanoes I’ve been to are on Lanzarote, which I can’t even remember the name of, and Taupo in New Zealand. I’ve never even seen a volcano erupt! Instead, I specialise in mapping ancient magma plumbing systems in 3D and reconstructing their formation. To circle back to my opening remark, we have learned a lot about volcanoes but it seems the more we learn the more complicated...

A guest post: Hello! We are three of Alison’s students at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. Kadie Bennis is a Master’s student in the Department of Geosciences researching subaqueous volcanism while combining both field observations and experimental techniques to characterize sediment-magma interfaces.

- Dr. Janine Krippner How many times are women told 'family or career' ? How many times have we heard about women being treated differently because they have, or want to have, a family? We have heard that it's even a career killer . If we have kids - your career will suffer. Your kids will suffer . You will basically fail at everything . This is the message I have seen over and over again. I have a couple of issues with this. Firstly - I see women succeed at both. Secondly - I see plenty of Dads raising kids and having a career too! The old saying is that 'it takes a village to raise a child', so why do we have the stigma that women are the only ones affected by raising kids, and that it poorly affects their work? When I started discussing putting this post together I got the reply: "I know :(  I have a brilliant chemist friend & she was in tears when she told me she won't pursue a future in academia as she wants children". We need to start...