Volcanology Researcher, Dmitri Rouwet @dmitrirouwet: A Day in the GeoLife Series

NAME: Dmitri Rouwet

CURRENT TITLE: Researcher in Volcanology at National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), Bologna, Italy

AREA OF EXPERTISE: I’m passionate about active crater lakes (water not lava lakes). 

YEARS OF EXPERIENCE: 15ish

EDUCATION: After an undergraduate in Geology in my home country, Belgium, I moved to Mexico City for a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Volcanology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Since 2006, I live and work in Italy.

WEBSITE:https://iavcei-cvl.org/

TWITTER NAME: @dmitrirouwet

What’s your job like?

Brainstorming, reading, writing, studying, exchanging, discussing, searching, and re-searching on one of the most amazing natural features on Earth: volcanoes and more specifically crater lakes.

What’s a typical day like?

9 days out of 10:
Grab a bike, hurry the kids to school, hurry to the office, head-down on the content of our job and exchange working experiences and contents with colleagues, hurry back home.

1 day out of 10:
Hike or drive on a volcano or some gaseous manifestation around, attend meetings and congresses.

What’s fun?

The variety: 

My job jumps from field work to lab work to desk work. These three fields are totally different but point to the same purpose of a better understanding of how volcanoes work.

Fieldwork is often physically rough, although sampling and measurement methods require meticulous execution.

Lab work is necessarily clean, picky and routinous, whereas desk work (90% of the total time) needs attention, pose, stamina and a fieldwork dose of creativity.

Needless to say that hiking on volcanoes once in a while is “philosophical.”

What’s challenging?

esearching to remain innovative within the dynamic environment of “high-tech” science on “low-tech” natural features.

What’s your advice to students?

Being a volcanologist is not only walking on volcanoes and taking (and sharing) cool pics. It’s during the 9-to-5 that it all happens.