{"id":3916,"date":"2019-02-17T09:17:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T14:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rockheadsciences.com\/?p=3916"},"modified":"2019-05-12T08:16:48","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T12:16:48","slug":"burberry-structural-geology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rockheadsciences.com\/burberry-structural-geology\/","title":{"rendered":"Structural Geology Professor, Cara Burberry @DeformationRox: A Day in the GeoLife Series"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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NAME:<\/strong> Cara Burberry<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CURRENT TITLE:<\/strong> Associate Professor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AREA OF EXPERTISE:<\/strong> Structural Geology<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YEARS OF EXPERIENCE:<\/strong> 10 since PhD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EDUCATION:<\/strong> PhD from Imperial College London, 2008. 
MGeol from Leeds University, 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WEBSITE:<\/strong>https:\/\/eas.unl.edu\/cara-burberry<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TWITTER NAME:<\/strong> @DeformationRox<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s your job like?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My job is 50% research, 40% teaching, and<\/g> 10% service. At present<\/g> I’m teaching 3 classes so the teaching load is up high and the research work has to take a back seat. I’ll head over to GeoProjects in a moment to talk about some of the projects that we are doing, but 2 of note are the tectonics of Vietnam and the distribution of penetrative strain in various systems using analog models. I involve students in the analog<\/g> modeling research as much as possible, so my days involve a considerable amount of student interaction. The service component is made up of being Vice Chair of the department, and working within the IODP community structure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s a typical day like?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A typical teaching day looks like this: get to work, think about the class notes that are already posted online but that I need to familiarize myself with before I go into class… teach! I’m teaching 101 first, which is our intro class to the geosciences, most of the students are not majors, but need this as a general education credit. The challenge is to make the material accessible and interesting without dumbing it down. Then I’ve got a two hour<\/g> break between classes, which is usually filled with dealing with email and just right now, working on a research proposal with colleagues – I owe them a page of text,<\/g> and need to get that done ASAP. My second class is my favorite class to teach, and this week we are going to have a digression on the core and when the core started to solidify, before finishing our discussion on Archean plate tectonics or the lack thereof… This week, I will then have a grading party with my TAs for 101 – we gave an exam last week and have to grade the short answer questions, so that’ll be about three hours of work. Then I go home to my son and cook supper and hang out with him before he goes to bed. I’m one of those academics who then does go back to work for a while, working on that research proposal I mentioned earlier, but this time with wine. My day ends with a chat online with my boyfriend (we’re in a commuter relationship) who is also an academic at a different uni, so it’s easy to share the joys and sorrows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s fun?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing the students’ faces light up when they “get” a concept… I love seeing the light dawn on them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facilitating a discussion in the tectonics class and hearing the students become more eloquent in forming, stating and defending their opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working in the lab with my undergrad students, seeing their experiments become successful and their theses come together<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That moment when a paper is published, which has been 10 years in the making (this just happened). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s challenging?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuing to teach when the students’ faces look bored, which is on me really; grading papers when it’s evident they haven’t understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balancing time between teaching and research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s your advice to students?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talk to your professor if something is going on that hinders your classwork – we’re human and want to help out!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find a PhD or graduate work that you really love – it’s hard to stay the course, but this helps<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication (both ways!) is key!<\/p>\n

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